Nabiki Master of Anything Goes
by Hawk
Summary: Ranma made another bet with Nabiki? Won't he ever learn? Well, at least this time it's a bet on an Anything Goes Martial Arts fight between Ranma and Nabiki. Surely our pigtailed hero is capable of defeating Nabiki, 'aint he?
1. One

Nabiki - Master of Anything Goes 

Nabiki - Master of Anything Goes[R]  
Niklas "Hawk" Jonsson  
  
  


Summary: Ranma made another bet with Nabiki? Won't he ever learn? Well, at least this time it's a bet on an Anything Goes Martial Arts fight between Ranma and Nabiki. Surely our pig-tailed hero is capable of defeating Nabiki, 'aint he? Will this be the one time Ranma actually manages to one-up Nabiki?  
  
Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2, the characters and whatnot are not mine, though I certainly wish they were! The story is mine though, all mine. This series deals with mature subject matters and violence. If this disturbs you, don't read. But if it does, then why the heck are you watching the show/reading the manga in the first place?  
  
Feedback/Flames: Yes, please. Both of them are equally fun to read, although I must admit that I greatly prefer the first variety. :)  
I can be found on ICQ as 21771860 or through e-mail as iamhawk@yahoo.com, more stories are available at my nifty lil' site at or by clicking on my handle up above if you're reading this on fanfiction.net.  
  
"speech"  
*emphasis/shouts/Kindred Domination/post-hypnotic triggers*  
/thoughts/  
*/telepathy/*  
~translation~  
+soundeffect/radio/telephone conversation/TV+  
  


* * *

  
  


Chapter One:

  
  
"Stop fooling around, you bloody jerk!" Tendo Akane hollered. "I'm a Martial Artist too, take me seriously dammit! I'm a Master of the Tendo School of Anything Goes, you half-man Kuno-loving asshole!" she ranted, desperately trying to connect with a constantly dodging Saotome Ranma who stiffened slightly and nearly got hit as the 'half-man' statement emerged from Akane's lips.  
  
"Hah! 'Master of the Tendo School of Anything Goes'! Feh!" Ranma snorted, his eyes shooting daggers at Akane. Name-calling was one thing, but he was sensitive enough about the current state of his manhood without her using it to insult him. Not to mention the 'Kuno-loving' bit! "If you're a master of the Tendo School, then I don't give much for that branch from what I've seen what you are capable of! If you can land even one punch, then I'll... I'll... I'll be your slave for a month, 'Master'!" he retorted, then blinked as he realised he'd gone too far. He'd not only insulted her, but her entire School. / Nice going, hotshot. You're letting her get to you./ he berated himself. But before he could squeeze out an apology, an apology even *he* for once understood was necessary, Nabiki interjected from the sidelines where she was observing the fight.  
  
"I wouldn't get too cocky, Ranma. Akane isn't the only practitioner of the Tendo School of Anything Goes in this Dojo. I might just take you up on that offer in her stead to redeem our School's honour." Nabiki ventured with a proud smirk.  
  
"You?" Ranma snorted, looking Nabiki up and down, distracted from his original intention of apologising. Nabiki had never displayed any real proficiency in Martial Arts before. Of course, Ranma's views on proficiency were a bit twisted, he had to admit. Nabiki did have some skill, perhaps she was good enough to face a brown belter, perhaps even a first Dan on one of her better days. But against him, she came up woefully short of the level of skill required to even come close to landing a hit. "I'd like to see you try!" he laughed.  
  
"For that remark, I think you will." Nabiki replied with a wide grin. "Just remember the stakes here. I land a hit, you're my slave for a month." she warned him and Ranma grew hesitant. Nabiki seemed awfully sure of herself. But he *knew* that she wasn't good enough, he *knew* it! He'd learned enough about her by now, not to make any careless bets with her. But this was Martial Arts! He knew Martial Arts! He was the best! She wasn't good enough! This time, he'd finally get her back for all the crap she'd pulled!  
  
"That goes the other way around too." Ranma warned her. "If you don't land a hit, you'll be my slave for a month." he explained, to which she raised an eyebrow, then nodded.  
  
"All right." Nabiki agreed. "I'll just go change, you can let Akane make a fool out of herself in the meantime." she added, nodding at Akane who'd worked herself into a murderous rage during the time since the insults. Hearing Nabiki belittle her like that, on top of Ranma's earlier insults, did not help her mood any.  
  
"RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANMA!" Akane growled, then launched herself at Ranma with all the furious speed, immense power and 'subtle' grace of a runaway train, telegraphing her moves from five miles away. Ranma merely sighed and started dodging effortlessly again.  
  
When Nabiki returned seven minutes later, Akane was in a fetal position on the floor, panting wildly and sweating rivers. Ranma stood a ways off, looking bored and relaxed, not a hair out of place. Nabiki raised en eyebrow again.  
  
"You actually hit her, Ranma-baby?" she inquired.  
  
"Naw. I let her chase after me, wasting her energy throwing punches and kicks that were so off the mark that I could hardly believe it. She ran herself into the ground." Ranma replied with a disappointed sigh. He looked over at Nabiki, then smiled at the sight of her in a white Gi. He'd never seen her wear anything of the kind before and he found the sight somewhat amusing. A black belt was loosely tied around her waist.  
  
"You done, Akane?" Nabiki politely inquired, as she bent down and started loosening herself up with a series of exercises.  
  
"... Not... *Wheeze* ... Yet... *Wheeze* ..." Akane panted from the floor. "I'm... *Pant* ... Gonna... ... ... *Wheeze* ... Show... *Wheeze* ... That asshole... *Pant* *Pant* *Wheeze* That I'm a... *Wheeze* Real Martial... *Pant* Artist!"  
  
"All right. Take your time." Nabiki pleasantly agreed and kept on warming up. Ranma observed her in silence, confirming his long-held opinions regarding her martial skills. Akane got up on a periodic basis, trying to slug him, but he danced out of the way effortlessly, much to her dismay and great frustration.  
  
When she finally gave up with a growled curse and stomped out, fuming, panting, wheezing and cursing under her breath, Nabiki had started doing graceful Kata's. Ranma grinned at Akane's back, then studied Nabiki for a few moments, silently revising his assessment of her skills. She was somewhat better then he'd expected for someone who didn't practise the Art on a regular basis any longer. Obviously, her Yoga and tennis training kept her in excellent shape and the training she once had received in Martial Arts appeared to be coming back easily enough to her.  
  
In fact, she wasn't that far away from Akane's level in skill. But Nabiki was more graceful and went between moves in a much smoother manner. While she didn't have Akane's brute monstrous strength and was a little bit slower, she didn't suffer from Akane's terrible temper and she didn't telegraph her moves as badly as the younger sister. Ranma had to admit that because of her calm, Nabiki probably was the better Martial Artist. Even though Akane did have more skill, strength and speed, she couldn't use it as efficiently because her temper made her sloppy, reckless and very often caused her to overextend herself. That lack of control was the major stumbling block, which kept the youngest sister from evolving into a respectable Martial Artist.  
  
"You ready?" Ranma inquired, causing Nabiki to stop and turn around to regard him. She nodded.  
  
"Ready as I'll ever be." Nabiki replied.  
  
"You do know that you've got no chance to win, don't you?" Ranma asked her.  
  
"This isn't a fight until knockdown, you know. I don't have to win and I know very well that I can't." Nabiki interjected. "Not only are you on a completely different level of skill, but I can't inflict anywhere near enough damage on you to actually knock you out. Akane and Ryoga might have the sort of brute strength required for that, but I don't." Nabiki continued. "But land one hit? That, I can do." she finished with a victorious smirk.  
  
"No, you can't." Ranma sighed. "You're better then I thought, quite possibly better then Akane. But you're not good enough, not fast enough, to actually hit me."  
  
"That's what we're here to see, isn't it?" Nabiki retorted, then got onto a loose horse-stance. "You done blustering and prepared to put your money where your mouth is?" she asked him.  
  
"Feh. I'm ready." he agreed with a faint shrug, not assuming any sort of recognisable stance. He merely stood in what seemed like a relaxed slouch.  
  
"I'm going to enjoy having you at my beck and call for a month, Ranma-baby." Nabiki informed him. "Not that I already don't, but it'll be nice to not have to persuade you into doing what I want over and over again for a change."  
  
"The first thing I'm going to have you do once you're my slave, is have you get back every single picture of me that you've ever sold." Ranma retorted. "Then I'll have you get Shampoo and the Kuno's off my back. You probably already know how, but are holding out for the day I get some serious cash so you can sell the information to me."  
  
"You may win the battle, Ranma-baby. But I'll still land at least one hit, making you my slave for a month." Nabiki warned him, then finally moved.  
  
Ranma snorted and danced out of the way, easily avoiding Nabiki's punches, kicks, elbows and knees. She nearly got him good, as it took him by complete surprise when all of a sudden she withdrew one of Ukyo's throwing spats from the sleeve of her Gi and threw that at him. He ducked underneath it and actually had to make an effort to roll out of the way of a swift downward kick. If he hadn't rolled out of the way quickly enough, she'd ground her heel down into his groin.  
  
"That was a good one. Damn well nearly got me there." Ranma complimented her. "However did you learn how to use those?" he asked her and shifted up a gear, as it turned out that she had been holding back a little. That last kick had been a whole lot faster then her previous attacks. At first, he had thought that Nabiki was a little bit slower then Akane, but that had been wrong. She was faster. Not so much that it would enable her to hit him, but it definitively put her on a level slightly above Akane.  
  
Just what the heck was it that had deluded Akane into thinking that she was the best Martial Artist in Nerima before he arrived and things got completely screwed up? Nabiki was better. The Kuno's were better, all three of them were more of a threat then Akane was. The golden pair were better. Tofu was better. So just why was it that Akane had believed herself to be the best?  
  
"They're not that different from a throwing knife. Once you get used to the balance, it's a piece of cake. And I knew that a throwing spatula would surprise you more, then if I used an actual knife." Nabiki replied. "Ukyo leaves them lying around all over town and I figured it might come in handy to be used to throwing them sometime, so I started practising with a few I came across a while back."  
  
"Cheater." Ranma grunted dismissively.  
  
"It's called 'Anything Goes' for a reason, you know?" Nabiki retorted. "And we never said anything about banning weapons from this little match, now did we?"  
  
"Guess not. All right, bring it on." Ranma taunted her, then danced out of the way of a particularly vicious kick and ducked underneath another spatula.  
  
"I guess it's time for a special attack soon, don't you agree?" Nabiki inquired pleasantly.  
  
"A what?" Ranma inquired.  
  
"A special attack. You know, you and Ryoga are constantly throwing Ki, roasting chestnuts and things at each other. I think it's time for one of my own special attacks." Nabiki explained.  
  
"You don't have any special attacks." Ranma snorted.  
  
"Oh?" Nabiki asked with a dangerous gleam in her eyes. "Watch this..." she warned him, then got back into the loose stance she had started in. "ANYTHING GOES TENDO SCHOOL, TENDO NABIKI SUPREME DISTRACTION!" she bellowed, grabbed hold of her jacket and pulled the fabric to the sides, revealing that she wasn't wearing a bra underneath it. Ranma froze in shock as she flashed him, revealing her firm and shapely breasts to him. His eyes bulged out, a thin tendril of blood started creeping out of his left nostril and the next thing he knew, he was sitting on the floor, rubbing his left cheek.  
  
"Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!" Nabiki whimpered as she danced around, cradling her right fist. "What the hell are you made out of?! Armoured plating?! That felt like hitting a tank!" she demanded.  
  
"Felt like... Hitting... Wait?! You, hit me?!" Ranma demanded, recovering from his temporary paralyzation. He looked around and his eyes got even wider, as he discovered that he was sitting on the ground, nursing a sore spot on his left cheek. "You... Hit... Me..." he repeated in a stunned tone of voice.  
  
"Yeahyeahyeah. I hit you and now I'm beginning to regretting it!" Nabiki exclaimed. "I think I broke my hand on you." she added and Ranma bounced up from the floor. He was at her side between one blink of the eye and the next. Nabiki suddenly found her right hand in his possession and winced as he gently probed it, watching intently as he did so.  
  
"You punched correctly, the wrist is fine. But your fingers... I think you sprained your index finger, the others seem fine, though you'll probably be bruised for a while." Ranma ventured, exhaling with relief, before he suddenly got tense again. "Uh... Nabiki..."  
  
"Yeah?" she replied, gingerly trying to move her fingers.  
  
"Could you... Perhaps... Close your jacket..." Ranma mumbled, averting his eyes and blushing furiously.  
  
"Wha..." Nabiki begun, then looked down. "Oh." escaped her lips, then she hurriedly pulled her jacket close and retied the belt over it. "Got a good look, eh?" she teased him, causing him to blush even more furiously then he already did. "Well, I did hit you like I said I would. You can enjoy the rest of the week as a free man, then we'll begin your month of slavery on Monday." Nabiki magnanimously announced, patting Ranma on the back with her left hand. "Don't feel too bad about it, Ranma-baby. When it comes to 'Anything Goes', I've got you beat. Hands down." she informed him, then walked off in search for Kasumi and her medical skills, leaving Ranma in the Dojo, standing in stunned silence and sporting beet red cheeks.  
  
The End! ( For now... )  
  



	2. Two

Nabiki - Master of Anything Goes 

Nabiki - Master of Anything Goes[R]  
Niklas "Hawk" Jonsson  
  
  


Summary: Ranma made another bet with Nabiki? Won't he ever learn? Well, at least this time it's a bet on an Anything Goes Martial Arts fight between Ranma and Nabiki. Surely our pig-tailed hero is capable of defeating Nabiki, 'aint he? Will this be the one time Ranma actually manages to one-up Nabiki?  
  
Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2, the characters and whatnot are not mine, though I certainly wish they were! The story is mine though, all mine. This series deals with mature subject matters and violence. If this disturbs you, don't read. But if it does, then why the heck are you watching the show/reading the manga in the first place?  
  
Feedback/Flames: Yes, please. Both of them are equally fun to read, although I must admit that I greatly prefer the first variety. :)  
I can be found on ICQ as 21771860 or through e-mail as iamhawk@yahoo.com, more stories are available at my nifty lil' site at or by clicking on my handle up above if you're reading this on fanfiction.net.  
  
"speech"  
*emphasis/shouts/Kindred Domination/post-hypnotic triggers*  
/thoughts/  
*/telepathy/*  
~translation~  
+soundeffect/radio/telephone conversation/TV+  
  
*** Author Rant ***  
  
I just don't get where y'all get the notion that Ranma is so used to female flesh, that it doesn't bother him anymore. Sure, he's pretty dang familiar with his own body and he's even used a variation of Nabiki's distraction himself once or twice. But...  
  
When he comes across a naked Akane, he freezes up. When he views her panties, he freezes up. When he's confronted with a naked Shampoo, he panics. He seems to be somewhat more resistant to bare flesh when Happosai is around, perhaps because the old freak serves as somewhat of a distraction or something. But even during the hot spring episode when the freak was about to lay his hands on a powerful scroll and should serve as a mighty distraction for young Saotome, Ranma was rather bothered by the girlie-girls washing themselves.  
  
So, never underestimate the power a nice set of boobs hold over the male mind. Even with easy access to a great set of his own, I'd say that a different set that is as shapely as Nabiki's ought to be good for a mental reboot against Ranma.  
  
Though it's certainly not the near-lethal attack due to loss of blood it would be if she used it against, say, Ryoga. :)  
  
*** Author Shutting Up ***  
  
  


*** Previously, on 'Nabiki - Master of Anything Goes' ***

  
  
"You punched correctly, the wrist is fine. But your fingers... I think you sprained your index finger, the others seem fine, though you'll probably be bruised for a while." Ranma ventured, exhaling with relief, before he suddenly got tense again. "Uh... Nabiki..."  
  
"Yeah?" she replied, gingerly trying to move her fingers.  
  
"Could you... Perhaps... Close your jacket..." Ranma mumbled, averting his eyes and blushing furiously.  
  
"Wha..." Nabiki begun, then looked down. "Oh." escaped her lips, then she hurriedly pulled her jacket close and retied the belt over it. "Got a good look, eh?" she teased him, causing him to blush even more furiously then he already did. "Well, I did hit you like I said I would. You can enjoy the rest of the week as a free man, then we'll begin your month of slavery on Monday." Nabiki magnanimously announced, patting Ranma on the back with her left hand. "Don't feel too bad about it, Ranma-baby. When it comes to 'Anything Goes', I've got you beat. Hands down." she informed him, then walked off in search for Kasumi and her medical skills, leaving Ranma in the Dojo, standing in stunned silence and sporting beet red cheeks.  
  


*** Roll credits ***

  
  
  


* * *

  
  


Chapter Two:

  
  
+Beep+ +Beep+ +Beep+  
  
Ranma sighed and stood up, putting his manga aside as the beeper Nabiki had lent him suddenly went off. She wanted him for something again. He strolled off towards her room and walked in without knocking.  
  
"Yeah?" he inquired and groaned as he saw her lying flat on her stomach, completely naked except for a towel covering her middle. The first week had been gruelling, as she had him mostly doing all sorts of boring, tedious and largely unnecessary tasks for her. Then she'd returned from an outing one evening, rubbing her left shoulder with a disgruntled expression on her face. Apparently, she'd been out collecting money and one particularly disgruntled debtor had thrown the money at her feet, then stalked off, shoving her into a wall in the process.  
  
She'd ordered him to give her a neck-rub to relieve the tension and thus discovered just how good he was at it. After a life of training, tension, strains and minor injuries, he'd picked up the techniques pretty darn fast and knew that if he ever found himself in serious need of cash, he could always take a job as a masseur or physical therapist.  
  
After that, the tasks she gave him merely for her own amusement and his annoyment stopped coming... Mostly... But instead she called him in for a real massage at least once a day in the week since. This was her second today.  
  
The weird thing was that she actually needed it! He'd never met such a tense individual in his entire life before. He'd never even begun to suspect just how much pressure the middle Tendo sister was under. Though after this time spent together with her, he'd started to realise just how hard she worked herself and those around her for the good of her family.  
  
He grabbed a bottle of oil from her nightstand and started rubbing it in, as Nabiki let out several contented sighs. Once that was done, he really got to work and her sighs turned into low moans and pleased whimpers.  
  
The third massage had not been pleasant, as Akane had walked in on them during it. She had *NOT* been pleased to find her sister naked, on the bed, with only a towel covering her middle section, while Ranma was giving her a massage. For a while, he had worried that all that screaming would cause his ears to fall off and he still had a bruise from where she'd clobbered him before he even had a chance to start to explain the situation.  
  
"Nabiki, do you... Oh! Oh my." Kasumi trailed off after having walked into the room, stopping for a few moments, before she apparently concluded that nothing indecent was going on and thus carried on as usual. "Do you have any dirty laundry?" she asked, walking fully into the room.  
  
"A sweater on my chair, panties and socks in the corner." Nabiki replied, pointing at one corner of the room where the items in question were bundled up on the floor. For such a well-organised person, she was surprisingly sloppy when it came to cleaning her own room. "OoooOOOooohhhh... Yeah, right there..." she moaned. "This is heaven..." she purred.  
  
"Seems like it." Kasumi agreed with a wistful note in her voice as she collected Nabiki's discarded articles of clothing.  
  
"Y'want one?" Nabiki offered.  
  
"Oh! But... I shouldn't... I've got to..." Kasumi started.  
  
"Kasumi! Do you want one?" Nabiki interjected.  
  
"There's so much to..." Kasumi tried.  
  
"Kasumi! Do. You. Want. A. Massage." Nabiki interrupted her again.  
  
"Yes." Kasumi finally admitted.  
  
"We'll be done soon. Drop off the laundry, go into your room and get ready. I'll send Ranma over when he's done with me." Nabiki told her older sister.  
  


* * *

  
  
+Knock+ +Knock+ +Knock+  
  
"Yes..." Kasumi mumbled from inside.  
  
"It's me." Ranma replied.  
  
"Come in..." Kasumi hesitantly offered after a while. She was clearly just as nervous as Ranma was. He opened the door and stopped, closing his eyes as he took a deep breath and tried to center himself, before opening his big mouth.  
  
"Uh... Kasumi?" he started.  
  
"Yes, Ranma?" she replied weakly.  
  
"I think... Uh... You forgot... Eh... The towel..." Ranma muttered, keeping his eyes shut.  
  
"Oh my!" she exclaimed and Ranma heard creaks and shuffling of cloth against skin as Kasumi rearranged things. "There." she finally announced and Ranma opened his eyes again, exhaling with relief as the dangerous area was covered. Apparently by a pillowcover she'd pulled off one of her pillows. "I forgot about the towel." she mumbled in acute embarrassment.  
  
"Eh... Ah... It's... Okay." Ranma responded as he walked fully into the room and closed the door. After a moment of hesitation, he locked it as well. It wouldn't do for Akane to storm in on him giving Kasumi a massage. It had been bad enough when it was Nabiki, but if Akane knew that he was getting 'hands on' with a semi-nude Kasumi, the innocent Tendo sister, he'd never hear the end of it.  
  
"Ranma... Be gentle..." Kasumi stated and Ranma turned beet red.  
  
"What?!" he demanded, certain that he'd heard wrong. Had to have heard her wrong!  
  
"Be gentle. Nabiki likes to go deep and feel the pressure. I don't." Kasumi explained herself and Ranma exhaled with relief, cursing his dirty mind for running off on him. Of course she hadn't meant anything like what he imagined, it was Kasumi for crying out loud! /All in your head, moron. It's all in your head.../ he told himself. /I am not a pervert. I am not like Happosai./ he added for good measure.  
  
He pulled out the bottle of oil from his pocket, then applied a generous amount of it, trying not to think of the fact that he was running his hands over a nearly completely naked Kasumi. For some reason, this was worse then when doing the same with Nabiki. When it was Nabiki, he could shrug it off, even if he was somewhat uncomfortable with all that naked skin filling up almost his entire field of vision. He could tell himself that she was forcing him, that he had no control over it and that he was honor-bound to do as she asked him due to the nature of their bet.  
  
But that didn't help now that he had Kasumi underneath his hands, running his callused hands over that impeccable expanse of naked silky-smooth skin. /I am not a pervert./ he repeated mentally for good measure. He was surprised at how tense she was, at how many knots he found and over just how much stress she must be under. He closed his eyes as he worked, trying to remember the last time he saw Kasumi take time for herself and failed to recall even one such instance. She was always around, always doing something, always with a kind and bright smile on her lips.  
  
"MMmmmMMMMMMmmmmm..." she purred./I am *not* a pervert!/ he fervently insisted, closing his eyes for a few moments. When opened his eyes again, he was determined to ensure that Kasumi got the very best he could offer her. He also instantly decided to ensure that she got more help around the house before she worked herself to an early grave. "Oh... *Oh* my..." Kasumi exclaimed as Ranma decided to give the girl a real treat. Nabiki had only gotten the standard massages he'd used for years while on the road with Genma. But he'd learned things lately, he'd learn to manipulate Ki. He'd learned to use pressure points. He *knew* how to make it an experience Kasumi would never forget.  
  
She was like putty in his hands, as he worked out the kinks in her body. She purred like a kitten as he worked down deep with infusions of his Ki, rather then pressure. She moaned out loud as he used various pressure points to relieve stress, accelerate healing and increase the production of the body's own drugs. By the time he was done, she'd fallen asleep with a shit-eating grin on her face.  
  
He put the oil back into his pocket, then snuck out of the room, closing the door behind him, leaving Kasumi to a well-deserved rest.  
  
Of course, Ranma being Ranma, not even such a simple thing as sneaking out of a room could be done without complications.  
  
"Ranma! What were you doing in Kasumi's room?!" Akane demanded, then glared down at his oily hands. "AAAAAAHHHH! You... You... You... You... You *PERVERT*!" she thundered and Ranma wisely decided to retreat for the moment, bolting away at top speed, leaving a fuming Akane behind.  
  


* * *

  
  
When Ranma returned a few hours later, his father and Mr Tendo had apparently found out about his recent activities, something he had managed to keep a secret up until that point. They had merely seen him spending more time around Nabiki and assumed it meant that he was getting better along with his fiancé's sister, saw it as a good sign and then stumbled off to celebrate the impending wedding.  
  
Now when the truth apparently had gotten out, they were less then pleased.  
  
"SON! HOW DARE YOU GIVE MASSAGES TO YOUR FIANCEE'S SISTERS, BUT NOT YOUR FIANCEE?!" Demon-Head Soun demanded.  
  
"RANMA?! YOU LOST TO A GIRL?!" Genma demanded. "Oh, woe is me! My own flesh and blood, a pitiful weakling!" he continued, bemoaning his fate as he attempted to beat some sense into his weak son.  
  
+THWACK+  
  
"Ow..." Genma whimpered from where he landed out in the yard.  
  
"If a girl manages to beat a 'pitiful weakling' like me, but I still manage to beat you, then what does that make you, pops?" Ranma spluttered, then ducked out of the way as the demon-head whipped at him, sprouting accusations and complaints that he wasn't getting his hands on Akane instead of her sisters.  
  
"You blabbed, huh?" Ranma asked Nabiki as he passed by where she was sitting at the table, calmly munching on a cookie as she observed Ranma dodging her father.  
  
"Nope. Akane did." Nabiki replied, then continued eating until the next time Ranma passed near her. "By the way. What did you do to Kasumi? She just won't stop grinning like a loon and it took nearly two hours before she managed to stand on her own two feet."  
  
"Well, she was pretty worn out and tense, so I kinda went all out on her." Ranma replied, then ran another lap around the room.  
  
"Do you know how kinky that sounds, Ranma-baby?" Nabiki inquired as he returned to the table. "Just what did you do when you 'went all out on her'?" she asked during the next lap, her curiosity piqued.  
  
"Pressure points, Ki manipulation, massage. The works." Ranma replied as he darted past Nabiki yet again.  
  
"Stop running. You're making me dizzy." Soun said, his eyes unfocused and glazed from his head swivelling round and round, while his body never moved. "Oooohhhh, pretty colours..." he mumbled, then keeled over and fainted.  
  
"And you haven't done that with me... Because?" Nabiki inquired, her eyes dangerously narrowed.  
  
"Uh. You... Never asked?" Ranma ventured cautiously, knowing that he was now on very shaky ground and that the slightest mistake might mean instant disaster.  
  
"And you never offered... Because?" Nabiki demanded.  
  
"Uh... Eh... I... Eh... Never thought of it?" he offered, not having anything better to say or capable on coming up with a convincing lie on such short notice.  
  
Nabiki fumed silently as she mulled that one over for a few seconds, then apparently decided that it wasn't worth flaying him for. She shrugged and visibly relaxed, though her glare got even more hard.  
  
"Next time, I want what she got. Am I making myself clear?" she asked.  
  
"Crystal. You want it just as good as I gave Kasumi, check." Ranma confirmed, nodding furiously.  
  
"We are still talking about a massage, aren't we, Ranma-baby?" Nabiki inquired, her gaze softening and her lips quirking upward into a teasing smile.  
  
"Perhaps... Do you want it to be only a massage?" Ranma responded, which would have been oh so cool, if he had been able to pull it off. It wasn't nearly as impressive with him starting to blush even before he'd finished the sentence and being completely incapable of meeting Nabiki's gaze due to acute embarrassment.  
  
Still, it took Nabiki by surprise and she studied him in silence as he squirmed under her careful scrutiny.  
  
"Well, well, well. What do you know..." Nabiki mumbled to herself. "Ranma-baby! I'm impressed. I see that I've been a good influence on you during these two weeks!" she praised him. "You have a lot to learn, though. A *LOT*." she added, then slung her right arm across his shoulders. "Don't you worry about that though. You keep giving me all these wonderful massages and I'll turn you into a shameless tease in hardly no time at all!" she promised.  
  
"And... Uh... If I don't wanna become one?" he ventured.  
  
"Ranma-baby. In all the time that we've known each other, how often has what you wanted had any relevance whatsoever on our dealings?" Nabiki inquired with a wide grin.  
  
"Uh... Not ever?" he replied after a few seconds.  
  
"That was a rhetorical question, you dolt." Nabiki responded with a bemused shake of her head. "You really do have a *lot* to learn."  
  


* * *

  
  
"OOoohhhhhh MMmmmyyyyyyyy GGgggooooooodddd..." Nabiki moaned as she regained consciousness, then instantly reached for her telephone. There was *no* time to loose. She only had Ranma for the rest of the month and after that, she'd have to come up with some other way of getting him to work for her. At the moment, she was even ready to pay him. Hell, she was even feeling so damned fucking good that she would be willing to give him a part of the profits!  
  
Not a big part, of course. But considering who she was, it was a generous gesture of near saintly proportions none the less.  
  
"Ryo-chan, it's me. Drop everything and I really mean *everything*! I need you to find some space to rent in central Nerima, it doesn't need to be all that big, just a couple of rooms, but I want a good location. I need flyers printed and delivered, advertising Divine Massages at the address you rent for me. The first five minutes are free! Threaten, coerce, bribe or whatever, but I want that space to be accessible for me by tomorrow." Nabiki prattled off the moment the girl in the other end picked up.  
  
+Uh, sure thing boss. But... Are you sure about the 'free' part?+ she inquired, no doubt wondering if her boss was ill or drunk.  
  
"Oh, I'm very sure. It's just like with drug dealers. The first one is always free, then when you got them hooked, you start charging through the roof." Nabiki responded with a distinctly feral note in her voice. She rattled off a few last-minute instructions, then hung up with a smug look on her face. These massages... None who got one, would be able to stay away from them. Nobody! When she got the rumour mill working, spreading the word that there was a cute young man giving out heavenly massages, they'd have customers lined up around the block.  
  
"Every single one who gets a freebie, will be coming back as a paying customer. Day after day after day. This is way more addictive then narcotics." Nabiki grinned smugly to herself.  
  
"Why, thank you." Ranma suddenly spoke up. "Good to know." he added and Nabiki twirled her head around, suddenly spotting a mop of black hair sticking up at the foot of her bed.  
  
"Ranma!" she exclaimed. "What are you still doing here?!" she demanded.  
  
"Calmest place in the house." he responded with a sigh. "Akane is on the war-path, the parents are furious and Kasumi keeps begging me for another massage. Happosai apparently overheard her and now he too wants a massage, only he wants me to do it in my cursed form... With my tits." Ranma groused, shaking his head in disgust and revulsion at the idea. He held up a book over the edge of the bed so that she could see it. "So I holed up here, figured that I might just as well get some reading done and try to avoid getting zapped by Hinako-sensei tomorrow."  
  
"I'm naked in here!" Nabiki protested.  
  
"With a towel covering the important bits. Just like you were when you got your massage, only then I had my hands on you." Ranma debated. "'Aint nuthin' I haven't seen before anyways." he added flippantly. Nabiki waited for a few moments, then grinned.  
  
"You didn't say anything about you having the better body this time." Nabiki stated.  
  
"Yeah, well... I learn from my mistakes." Ranma defended himself, well remembering the first massage, when Nabiki had made a comment about how lucky he was to get his hands on such a great body. He'd responded that he could get his hands on an even better body whenever he got wet. After that, he had spent the following five minutes curled up on the floor, whimpering in pain as his nuts slowly started to recover from being squeezed in Nabiki's iron grip.  
  
"Eventually." Nabiki agreed. She'd only had to use the Tendo Nabiki Ultimate Anything Goes Negotiation Technique, the Nutcracker of Persuasion, twice before he seemed to get the point and started controlling his mouth around her. As far as teaching aides went, the Nutcracker of Persuasion was incredibly effective. It certainly seemed to work a whole lot better then Akane's fists, feet, mallet and acidic statements ever had. Akane still couldn't get Ranma to stop insulting her, but Nabiki appeared to have managed with a simple two-step program. "Aw, heck. I don't really mind. You could have let me know that you were still here, though." she added with a faint hint of irritation creeping into her voice.  
  
"I would have, if you hadn't dived for the phone the moment you started to stir again." Ranma interjected. "So, I'm going to become a masseuse for you, is that it?" he inquired, a faintly irritated note in his own voice.  
  
"Look, Ranma. You've got a gift. It's... That was... I can't even begin to describe it. With the money we'll make off your massages, I won't have to sell pictures any longer. I won't have to run betting pools. I won't have to blackmail people." Nabiki replied. "I'll have you work every free minute for the rest of the month, but I'll pay you for your work. That'll give us a decent amount of customers. Once your month is over, we can continue running the business part-time, raise the prices and only keep those customers who are willing to pay what we demand. You'll still have time for school and Martial Arts, you'll make some money for yourself and the household will be kept afloat." Nabiki continued passionately. "Please, Ranma. At least think about it?"  
  
He already was.  
  
He knew, or at least thought he knew, just how much she actually hated doing what she was forced to do, in order to maintain a somewhat steady income for the household to live off. He wasn't all that comfortable with it either. After this time spent with her, he'd learned more about her operations then he'd ever wanted to know. It was hard to enjoy even Kasumi's cooking, when he knew what sort of things had paid for the ingredients. He had thought the pictures of him and Akane were bad enough, but in comparison to some of the other things...  
  
Had he known before, *really* known some of the things Nabiki had been up to, he never would have said a word about the pictures. Having a few semi-nude pictures of his female form being distributed around the school was nothing compared to some of her black-mail schemes, the tests she sold and the poor people she manipulated like pieces on a Shogi board, just in order to ensure that her family had food on the table, power in the outlets and water in the faucets.  
  
But that didn't mean that he'd give in easily. He had learned well from Nabiki.  
  
"How much?" he inquired, having learned that particular lesson pretty darn quickly after Nabiki took him under her wing. She heard him shuffling about. She turned her head around and saw him turning around, sitting up on his knees as he looked at her. She controlled a blush and hastily made sure that the towel was still covering her rump. While she wasn't an excessively modest person and having a distracted opponent had certain indisputable benefits during negotiations, she didn't quite feel like baring herself any more then necessary at the moment.  
  
"500 Yen an hour and 1% of the profit." Nabiki offered, causing Ranma to raise an inquisitive eyebrow. "Yeah, yeah. I'm one *very* satisfied woman at the moment, so it's a bit higher then you might otherwise have been offered." she groused.  
  
"I'll consider it." Ranma replied, then smirked. It wasn't quite as good as Nabiki's predatory grins, but he was slowly, very slowly, getting there. "And I'll also consider what I'll be charging *you* for continued massages, once the month is up." he drawled, causing a chill to run up her spine. So, this was what it felt like to be on the receiving end. Nabiki didn't like it, not one bit.  
  
"You do that." Nabiki agreed. She wasn't feeling up to the task of debating with him now. She was way to mellow to do it efficiently, way to content and dazed to think rationally. In her current state, she might just very well loose against Ranma and she didn't want that to happen.  
  
She'd get him back for that dig once her mind was clear and her thinking unclouded by a near post-coital haze. Or what she imagined one of those would feel like, at any rate. This was exactly how she imagined it would feel after having been shown a *good* time in the sack.  
  
The End! ( For now... )  
  



	3. Three

Nabiki - Master of Anything Goes 

Nabiki - Master of Anything Goes[R]  
Niklas "Hawk" Jonsson  
  


Summary: Ranma made another bet with Nabiki? Won't he ever learn? Well, at least this time it's a bet on an Anything Goes Martial Arts fight between Ranma and Nabiki. Surely our pig-tailed hero is capable of defeating Nabiki, 'aint he? Will this be the one time Ranma actually manages to one-up Nabiki?  
  
Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2, the characters and whatnot are not mine, though I certainly wish they were! The story is mine though, all mine. This series deals with mature subject matters and violence. If this disturbs you, don't read. But if it does, then why the heck are you watching the show/reading the manga in the first place?  
  
Feedback/Flames: Yes, please. Both of them are equally fun to read, although I must admit that I greatly prefer the first variety. :)  
I can be found on ICQ as 21771860 or through e-mail as iamhawkyahoo.com, more stories are available at my nifty lil' site at http:www.hawksgalaxy.com or by clicking on my handle up above if you're reading this on fanfiction.net.  
  
"speech"  
emphasis/shouts/Kindred Domination/post-hypnotic triggers  
/thoughts/  
/telepathy/  
translation  
soundeffect/radio/telephone conversation/TV  
  


Crazy Writer Regarding Money 

  
  
Yes, 500 yen 'aint much. But what? You guys actually expected Nabiki to fork out a decent salary without someone holding a gun to her head? ;)  
  


Demented Writer Sods Off To Smoke A Cancerstick 

  
  


Previously, on 'Nabiki - Master of Anything Goes' 

  
  
"How much?" he inquired, having learned that particular lesson pretty darn quickly after Nabiki took him under her wing. She heard him shuffling about. She turned her head around and saw him turning around, sitting up on his knees as he looked at her. She controlled a blush and hastily made sure that the towel was still covering her rump. While she wasn't an excessively modest person and having a distracted opponent had certain indisputable benefits during negotiations, she didn't quite feel like baring herself any more then necessary at the moment.  
  
"500 Yen an hour and 1% of the profit." Nabiki offered, causing Ranma to raise an inquisitive eyebrow. "Yeah, yeah. I'm one very satisfied woman at the moment, so it's a bit higher then you might otherwise have been offered." she groused.  
  
"I'll consider it." Ranma replied, then smirked. It wasn't quite as good as Nabiki's predatory grins, but he was slowly, very slowly, getting there. "And I'll also consider what I'll be charging you for continued massages, once the month is up." he drawled, causing a chill to run up her spine. So, this was what it felt like to be on the receiving end. Nabiki didn't like it, not one bit.  
  
"You do that." Nabiki agreed. She wasn't feeling up to the task of debating with him now. She was way to mellow to do it efficiently, way to content and dazed to think rationally. In her current state, she might just very well loose against Ranma and she didn't want that to happen.  
  
She'd get him back for that dig once her mind was clear and her thinking unclouded by a near post-coital haze. Or what she imagined one of those would feel like, at any rate. This was exactly how she imagined it would feel after having been shown a good time in the sack.  
  


Roll credits 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Chapter Three:

  
  
"Oooohhhh, Airen..." Shampoo purred. "This... Airen wonderful... Shampoo never want leave." she managed to get out, then felt a shiver run up her spine as she saw Nabiki appear in front of her, holding a stopwatch.  
  
"Fifteen seconds left, Shampoo." Nabiki informed her with a wide grin that grew progressively larger as she glanced at the watch again. "How much money do you have on you?" she inquired almost absently.  
  
"Shampoo not have money on Shampoo now." Shampoo fearfully admitted. "Pay Perverted Extortionist Girl tomorrow?" she ventured, but Shampoo's crestfallen expression revealed that she knew that her plea would fall upon deaf ears.  
  
"EEEEEeeeep! Wrong answer. This 'Perverted Extortionist Girl' doesn't believe in credit." Nabiki replied, then tapped a button on her stopwatch. "Your time, is up." she added with a slight amount of satisfaction. "And my name, is Nabiki. You might want to remember that for future reference. Especially considering the fact that you'll have to book a time for another massage through me."  
  
"Shampoo sorry, Per-eh... Nabiki." Shampoo apologised, then directed a hopeful look at Nabiki. "Shampoo run home, get money. Nabiki have another time for Shampoo today?"  
  
"13,000 Yen for half an hour. 25,000 Yen for a full hour." Nabiki informed Shampoo, who paled significantly, but nodded almost instantly. There was little hesitation.  
  
"Shampoo be back, buy full hour." she said, an almost crazy gleam in her eyes. "Airen, see soon!" she finished and stormed out of the room. She didn't even stop in the dressing room to clothe herself, she merely stormed out while getting dressed, giving those in the waiting room a free show as she hurried through.  
  
"13,000 for half an hour?!" Ranma exclaimed. "You're paying me 500 for one hour!"  
  
"Plus 1% of the profit." Nabiki interjected. "Then there's rent, phone, furniture, marketing, water for the showers, heating, cleaning, the rent-a-cooler, food and whatnot." she added, then stole a line from a foreign book she'd read once. "I'm practically cutting my own throat here."  
  
"Yeah, right..." Ranma muttered. Rent surely wasn't cheap, but at 25,000 an hour, there had to be a rather hefty profit none the less. "We'll definitively be renegotiating my pay once the month is up." he groused.  
  
"All right. Just remember, I didn't have to pay you for your work this month at all and we still haven't discussed just how much you and your father owe the Tendo family for food, lodging and repairs during your rather lengthy stay." Nabiki flippantly replied, causing Ranma to pale significantly as he started to consider just how much that might amount to.  
  


* * *

  
  
"Ucchan." Ranma greeted the newest person to walk into the room for a five-minute freebie. He'd been expecting her and, to tell the truth, was rather looking forward to it. It would be a lot more pleasant to have a go at her, then his latest customer. That wrinkly old man had been a horror and had finished the massage by kissing Ranma on the mouth, before storming out with a wide grin on his lips.  
  
"She paid for half an hour, in addition to the five minute freebie." Nabiki informed Ranma, poking her head in through the curtains separating the massage room from the dressing room. Ranma nodded, as Ukyo smiled while blushing. He politely turned away, as she approached the bench and removed the towel wrapped around her torso. She stretched out on the bench and adjusted the second towel, making sure that she was still decent, but not so decent as to appear prudish. She didn't mind all that much if Ranma got to see a little more skin then what was really proper.  
  
"I'm... Eh... I'm ready, Ranchan." Ukyo stuttered, crossing her arms to rest her head on.  
  
"Then let's get cracking." Ranma commented, before cracking his knuckles. "Do you want it rough and deep, or do you want me to be gentle?" he inquired, enjoying watching somebody else blush for a change. Granted, he could feel his own cheeks heat up as well, but Ukyo couldn't see that from her position, while he could see the edge of her cheeks, which changed colour at his question. He grinned as he oiled up his hands, rubbing it in.  
  
He had to admit that Nabiki was right, this was fun! Now if he could only stop himself from blushing, he might not feel even half as foolish as he currently did while teasing others.  
  
"Ranchan, eh... I want it... Eh... Start out with a little force and we'll see how that feels." she mumbled in reply.  
  
"You like it rough, Ucchan?" Ranma asked off-handedly, just a split second before he put his hands on her.  
  
"Ah! Uh... Eh... Heh, hehehe." Ukyo responded skittishly, giving off a full-body shiver as he started to work her like a finely tuned instrument.  
  


* * *

  
  
"Spatula Girl just get freebie?" Shampoo inquired as she saw Ukyo stumble out of the dressing room, trying to suppress her initial instinct to just kill the girl straight away upon spotting her after realising that her Airen had just had laid his hands on the Spatula Gal. There was no doubt in her mind that Ukyo had only gone here to be with Ranma. /The slut!/ Shampoo mentally raged. Unfortunately, Nabiki had calmly and politely informed Shampoo upon her return that participation in a fight at the parlour, would prevent her from getting any further massages for the rest of the month.  
  
And Shampoo really wanted that massage!  
  
"Ohhhhh, heeeey Shamps..." Ukyo drawled, blinking owlishly at her rival. "Nahw, I paid for half an hour." she replied, then giggled. "It was sooooooooooooo worth it." she purred and unexpectedly seated herself next to Shampoo, wrapping one arm around her rivals shoulder.  
  
"Spatula Girl look too too deeply into bottle of sake?" Shampoo demanded to know, pulling away from Ukyo who responded with a petulant frown.  
  
"Mhno." Ukyo protested. "S'really good. Ranchan was soooo good to me. He knows just how I like it." Ukyo added, then blushed as she giggled again. "Teh-heh-heh. Just how I like it!" she repeated.  
  
"Spatula Girl drunk..." Shampoo groused, then left Ukyo where she was, stripped out of her clothes and walked through the curtains for her massage. She didn't bother with towels, like Ukyo had.  
  
"Gack! Shampoo! Where's your towel?!" Ranmas voice demanded, drifting into the dressing room.  
  
"Airen! Wo ai ni!" Shampoo gushed and Ukyo heard the unmistakable sound of an Amazon glomp.  
  
"Ack! Get offa me!" Ranma cried out.  
  
Ukyo didn't much care, though. She just stretched out on the bench and purred like a content kitten.  
  
When Shampoo returned an hour later, she did so while clinging to Nabiki who had to help her walk. Ukyo stirred from the light slumber she'd drifted into, looking up at them.  
  
"Heeeeeey, Spatula Girl." Shampoo greeted her rival in a much more amiable manner then usual. "T'was too too goooooooooood. Spatula Girl right, Airen know just how Shampoo likes it." she drawled and giggled as Nabiki seated the amazon at one of the benches.  
  
"Azusa, stop petting the towel and get ready for your turn." Nabiki instructed with a sigh, glaring over at the next customer in line for her freebie, Shiratori Azusa.  
  
"But my Gregory is just so cuuuute!" Azusa protested, treating the folded towel much like one would a prized cat.  
  
"Oh for..." Nabiki started, then sighed and tossed another towel at the naked girl. "Here, use this to cover yourself up and bring 'your' precious little Gregory. Now get going, you're holding up the line."  
  
"Oh, Constantine!" Azusa gushed as she caught the second towel, folding it up just like the other one, then put that too down in her lap, petting both towels with an adoring expression plastered on her innocent face.  
  
"I can see that this will take some time." Nabiki sighed and shook her head, cursing the delay as well as air-headed bimbo ice-skaters. She squared her shoulders and went back through the curtain, returning half a minute later with a blindfolded Ranma whom she led around by his broad shoulders. With a none-too-gentle shove, she got Azusa to turn her back somewhat away from the wall, then Nabiki guided Ranma's hands to Azusa's back. "Get going." she instructed him and he did, which promptly silenced Azusa's near-constant cooing over her two prize towels.  
  
"OOoh." she squealed in delight.  
  
"Now wouldn't this be much better if you were lying down?" Nabiki asked, then at Azusa's vapid expression and faint nod of agreement, Nabiki pushed the towels off Azusa's lap and dragged the girl into an upright position, leading both the airhead and the blindfolded Ranma through the curtain.  
  


* * *

  
  
"Okay, Saotome. Your month of service is almost up and business is booming. What will it take for you to keep on working for me?" Nabiki inquired, looking calmly at Ranma over her desk.  
  
"2500 Yen an hour and 10% of the profits." Ranma replied without hesitation. "As well as one... Other thing." he added. At first, Nabiki was thrilled. She'd expected him to ask for more, in fact, after being under her wing for this month, expected a lot more. Then she realised that she hadn't heard the complete request yet.  
  
"And that 'other thing' would be, what?" Nabiki inquired suspiciously. If he hadn't asked for more, it couldn't be something good.  
  
"Give up your other little 'business ventures'." Ranma replied. "No more selling pictures, no more blackmailing or anything else. If you want me to work for you, then this will be your only business."  
  
"I think that can be..." Nabiki started to say. It wasn't hard to agree too, after all, she had been planning on dropping out anyway. The parlour kept her busy enough as it was and with the money it brought in, she really didn't need her original sideline business either.  
  
"And don't just put one of your underlings in charge either. Shut it down, leave the business and don't get yourself involved in it again in any way, shape or manner." Ranma interrupted her, causing her to smile. He was learning, all right! She'd done well with this one, considering that she'd only had one month to coach him in.  
  
"As I would have said if I hadn't been interrupted, I think that can be arranged." Nabiki agreed. "Deal?" she inquired and offered her right hand to Ranma. She had been planning to stop her other activities anyway, but Ranma didn't have to know that and if she got him to agree to it before he found out, he couldn't raise his monetary demands afterwards. He hastily accepted her hand, shaking it with gusto and Nabiki suppressed a desire to grin. /Gotcha!/  
  
"I also have a question. On a completely unrelated matter." Ranma suddenly announced, causing Nabiki to raise an eyebrow and lean back in her seat. /Sounds serious... Considering that he used a word like 'unrelated', very serious./ she thought, wondering just what that question might be.  
  
"Akane has been an even bigger bitch then usual lately and I've had enough. I'm going to break off the engagement." Ranma revealed, causing Nabikis eyes to bulge out and a big lump to settle in her throat. This, she hadn't expected! What with starting up this new business, as well as maintaining the old ones, she had been kept busy and hadn't known that things were going even further downhill for Ranma and Akane. /Bitch? Things must be really out of hand.../  
  
"If you want to ask me how to break it to her without hurting her, I'm afraid there's no way to do that. It's going to be rough on her, however you put it." Nabiki said, swallowing. 'Rough' was an understatement, to say the least.  
  
"After how she acted earlier today, her emotional well-being is not something I am going to loose any sleep over." Ranma coldly replied and the feral glimmer in his eyes made Nabiki shrink back from him. He seemed to notice this and closed his eyes, then calmed himself down, before opening them again. She wondered if it had really been such a good idea to coach him, to help him develop his mind and spine. Just two weeks ago, halfway into his month of 'slavery', he'd never act anything even remotely like this. He really was an incredible learner, when he put his mind to it.  
  
She reminded herself to check in with her factors later, she hadn't done that so far and thus, was completely out of the loop. But considering the fact that both of them had rushed straight to the parlour after school and things seemed fine at breakfast, the incident that broke the camel's back had to have happened at school. If that was the case, her factors would be well aware of it by now.  
  
"Then... What did you want to ask me?" Nabiki wondered, hoping that he wouldn't be asking her for ways to get revenge at Akane. Considering his current state, she wasn't sure what was going to happen if she said no.  
  
"Unless our fathers decide to break the agreement completely, they'd never accept my decision. Unless..." Ranma ventured, grinned and looked straight at Nabiki. "Unless I had another Tendo lined up, ready to take Akane's place." he added, causing Nabiki to shrink back from him again. "Are you up for the job?"  
  
Tendo Nabiki only rarely outwardly expressed what she felt, only on the most rare of occasions was there an expression on her face that she hadn't consciously decided to display to the world. She had been rendered speechless before, on one or two occasions.  
  
But never, never before, had she been so stunned, so baffled, so caught unawares, that she had 'Eeep':ed, blushed and gaped, her eyes bulging and her finely honed mind rendered unable to produce even one single, simple coherent thought.  
  
"WHAT?!" she exclaimed once she'd regained some of her bearings, though not nearly enough of them for her own well being. She cursed her outburst, but just couldn't bring herself to calm down enough to regain her composure.  
  
"Well, if you've got some great plan which would allow the agreement to be completely void without any loss of honour to either family, I'm certainly more then willing to hear you out. But unless you don't, you know what is going to happen just as well as I do." Ranma responded, rubbing his temples. "If by some Kami-sent miracle they do accept me not marrying Akane, they're just going to push either you or Kasumi into her place."  
  
"B-b-bu-b-but why m-me?" Nabiki stuttered, then growled under her breath and slapped herself. She would not allow herself to turn into a stuttering fool. She was Tendo Nabiki. She was in control. She did not stutter! "I figured you would have gone for Kasumi in a situation like this. What's the matter, isn't my sister good enough for you?" Nabiki challenged him.  
  
"Had this happened two months ago, I probably would have asked Kasumi." Ranma admitted. "But come on. Could you really blame me? Just about the only times the two of us interacted before was around the dinner-table, whenever I wanted information from you or whenever you wanted either money or some service from me." Ranma continued, then shook his head. "But we get along fairly well these days, don't we? A lot has changed in the last month."  
  
"That we do and that it has." Nabiki admitted, slightly mollified. "But 'get along fairly well' isn't exactly a solid foundation for an engagement." she continued, then chuckled. "And what makes you think that I would even want to marry you? Or even want to be engaged to you? You attract problems like nobody I've ever seen before and being engaged to you would mean a big chance that I'd get involved in your woes. If you hadn't already noticed, I'm more of a side-lines kinda girl."  
  
"Well, I figured that I'd at least give you a chance to have your say before I break the news to our fathers." Ranma responded with a tired sigh, then adopted a small smile as he dismissed the matter. "This month... It's been... An experience." he stated as he stood up. "Thank you, Nabiki. You could have made it a lot worse for me. I know that I would have for you, if our roles had been reversed."  
  
"Like that would ever happen." Nabiki snorted. "Have you ever known me to enter a loosing bet?"  
  
"No." Ranma admitted with a wry smile. "I should have apologised the moment you spoke up. I won't make that mistake again."  
  
"I should hope not." Nabiki agreed, then grew hesitant, unsure if she really wanted to voice what was currently on her mind. "Though I won't mind all that much if you don't. Like you said, it could have been a lot worse. For both of us. I've had... Fun." she admitted.  
  
"Yeah..." Ranma agreed. If someone had said during the first day of his 'slavehood' that he'd have fun, he would have laughed in that persons face. But being around Nabiki for a month hadn't been all that bad. Sure, he had doled out so many massages lately that he probably went through the motions in his sleep, but he'd learned a lot. Nabiki had forced him to take an interest in the business, she'd taught him to stand up for himself and she'd showed him just how much fun it could be to win verbal battles and tease others. "See you back home." he finished and stood up, heading for the door.  
  
"Ranma... You really are breaking the engagement to Akane?" Nabiki inquired as he reached for the door-handle.  
  
"Yeah..." Ranma said, leaning against the door. "There's no way I'm marrying her now." he added in a firm tone of voice.  
  
"What... What happened?" Nabiki asked, though she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know, considering how upset Ranma seemed to be.  
  
"Ask her." was all he said, then he walked out of the little office in their massage parlour, leaving Nabiki alone with her thoughts.  
  
The End! ( For now... )  
  



	4. Four

Nabiki - Master of Anything Goes 

Nabiki - Master of Anything Goes[R]  
Niklas "Hawk" Jonsson  
  


Summary: Ranma made another bet with Nabiki? Won't he ever learn? Well, at least this time it's a bet on an Anything Goes Martial Arts fight between Ranma and Nabiki. Surely our pig-tailed hero is capable of defeating Nabiki, 'aint he? Will this be the one time Ranma actually manages to one-up Nabiki?  
  
Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2, the characters and whatnot are not mine, though I certainly wish they were! The story is mine though, all mine. This series deals with mature subject matters and violence. If this disturbs you, don't read. But if it does, then why the heck are you watching the show/reading the manga in the first place?  
  
Feedback/Flames: Yes, please. Both of them are equally fun to read, although I must admit that I greatly prefer the first variety. :)  
I can be found on ICQ as 21771860 or through e-mail as iamhawkyahoo.com, more stories are available at my nifty lil' site at http:www.hawksgalaxy.com or by clicking on my handle up above if you're reading this on fanfiction.net.  
  
"speech"  
emphasis/shouts/Kindred Domination/post-hypnotic triggers  
/thoughts/  
/telepathy/  
translation  
soundeffect/radio/telephone conversation/TV  
  


Previously, on 'Nabiki - Master of Anything Goes' 

  
  
"Ranma... You really are breaking the engagement to Akane?" Nabiki inquired as he reached for the door-handle.  
  
"Yeah..." Ranma said, leaning against the door. "There's no way I'm marrying her now." he added in a firm tone of voice.  
  
"What... What happened?" Nabiki asked, though she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know, considering how upset Ranma seemed to be.  
  
"Ask her." was all he said, then he walked out of the little office in their massage parlor, leaving Nabiki alone with her thoughts.  
  


Roll credits 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Chapter Four:

  
  
"All right, everybody. I have something to say." Ranma announced at the breakfast table, standing up to address the entire family.  
  
"My daughter is getting married!" Soun exclaimed, leaping up from his seat with an ecstatic look on his face. "Oh, Akane! I'm so happy for you!" he managed to get out, before he hoisted Akane up into a fierce bear-hug and broke down in tears.  
  
Which did not prevent him from spinning his increasingly annoyed daughter around, showering her with both tears and affection, as well as making her dizzy.  
  
"The schools will finally be united!" Genma proclaimed, then dove for the cupboard where the Sake was kept, all too eager to celebrate the happy occasion.  
  
"My son!" Nodoka gushed, clasping her hands together. She had wondered why Ranma had asked her to come over and now it was all clear. Her darling son was getting married! "You are so manly!" she praised him.  
  
"SILENCE!" Ranma bellowed. "That is not it!" he continued and darted over to Genma, tossing him back towards his place at the table before he could get his hands on the Sake. "What I have to say, is that I'm NOT going to marry Akane. Not now, not in a month, not after we graduate, not ever!"  
  
"Are you telling me that my daughter isn't good enough for you?!" Soun demanded, appearing before Ranma so quickly that one might almost suspect teleportation. Akane had been left behind, dizzily swaying back and forth as she wiped her face dry of Soun's tears with a towel that Kasumi had generously provided her with the moment she was out of Souns arms.  
  
"Stop this nonsense, foolish boy!" Genma snorted. "You are getting married to Akane, you have no say in the matter."  
  
"Really, Ranma. This is most unma..." Nodoka started to say, but Ranma interrupted her.  
  
"I don't think any of you really understand what I'm saying here." Ranma growled out, silencing everybody around the table as his battle aura flared into existence, an angry fiery red one which made everybody back off a few steps from him. Soun did so while frantically patting himself down, as his Gi had started to smoke and his hair curl up from the heat. "I am not marrying Akane. If I have to renounce my name and my family to accomplish that... Then. So. Be. It." he continued in a normal speaking volume, though without even one speck of emotion creeping into his voice.  
  
Nodoka gasped, her eyes bulging out as her son threatened to give up his name. Genma visibly paled. Soun managed a half-hearted demon-head, but the demonic head was crying instead of doing it's usual rant. Kasumi 'eep':ed and 'oh my':ed over and over again. Nabiki didn't seem at all surprised, which she really wasn't. She had been told about this beforehand, after all.  
  
Everybody's eyes turned towards Akane, who had now seated herself and sat with her head bent down, looking at the floor in front of her knees. Her hands were resting on her thighs, grasping her skirt in grips of iron and her mouth was one thin, narrow line.  
  
"Yeah." Akane finally said, her voice raspy with emotion. "I thought as much..." she added in a faint voice, then slowly got into an upright position. She looked up at Ranma and adopted a contrite expression, regret nearly blazing from her eyes. "I'm... Sorry... So sorry, Ranma... I know... I know it doesn't cut it, but... I'm sorry."  
  


Flashback Sequence 

  
  
It wasn't even anything unusual that started it. Akane didn't act any differently from how she usually did. She had done similar things before, many times before, as a matter of fact. No, what was different, was Ranma.  
  
Though Akane knew that Ranma now spent a great deal of time around Nabiki due to loosing the bet with her, she hadn't been aware of the nature of their relationship. She had believed it to be one of master-slave, she hadn't expected the teacher-student bit and the changes that brought about thus came as a complete surprise to her.  
  
In the last month, he'd interacted more with Nabiki in one week then he had during his entire stay before loosing that bet. As a result, he had to learn very quickly how to stand up for himself against a woman. Akane had noticed changes, but hadn't spent enough time with Ranma lately to really get a feel for how large the changes he'd gone through were.  
  
She had noticed that he now spent more attention in class, that he actually seemed to do his homework, sometimes even without her reminding him to do it. She had noticed that the insults she usually received, came less and less frequently. She had noticed that Ukyo and Shampoo had turned less aggressive around him and more friendly towards each other.  
  
Without Ukyo clinging to him like a slut, Shampoo glomping him like a whore on speed and Ranma himself not sprouting insults left and right, she had been getting along pretty decently with him lately, as long as she managed to ignore the fact that both Nabiki and Kasumi got frequent massages from him.  
  
As did the greater part of middle and upper class Nerima, if the rumors were true. Ranma had even offered her one, but she had turned him down with a blush, a shout of pervert and a slap to the face. She regretted that now, as enough of her friends had gotten massages and assured her that Ranma was a complete gentleman during the entire process, but hadn't been able to bring herself to apologize and request a massage of her own just yet.  
  
But she figured that a good start would be to make some food for Ranma. He was an enthusiastic eater, loved great food and after all, didn't they say that the way to a mans heart was through his stomach?  
  
Akane turned starry-eyed as she imagined Ranma calmly and politely, obviously savoring every single bite, reducing the bento she had made for him into nothing but a hollowed-out empty shell of it's former self. As her imagination displayed Ranma slowly wiping his mouth with the hankie the box had come wrapped in, standing up and leaning in over her, a blush spread over her face. The image was dispelled before their lips met, but that only made her all the more determined to make it happen in real life.  
  
She strolled over towards his desk, where he was sitting and reading his English text book, his pen adorably sticking out of his mouth, dipping up and down as he pondered the book in front of him.  
  
"Ranma. I made you lunch!" Akane cheerfully announced and watched as the pen fell to the desk and Ranma looked up at her, then down at the bento in her hands.  
  
"How... Ah... Nice of you." Ranma responded, an unreadable expression on his face.  
  
Her daydream was already becoming real! He didn't insult her or anything! He must somehow have sensed how much her cooking had improved and the odd expression on his face must mean that he was very eager to try out her cooking. She wouldn't disappoint him.  
  
"Here you are!" she chirped cheerfully, putting the bento down on his desk, beaming down at him as he didn't even shy away from it, as he usually did.  
  
"Uh. ... Akane... Did you actually taste this one?" Ranma inquired weakly.  
  
"Nuh-uh." Akane cheerfully responded, a wide smile on her lips. He was interested in her cooking methods, her special secrets! He already knew how good it was and wanted to find out how she had done it!  
  
"You do remember what Kasumi said about always tasting your cooking, both as you're cooking and after you think you're finished?" Ranma asked.  
  
"Yes. She was very helpful." Akane agreed.  
  
"So, why didn't you taste it like she said?" Ranma hesitantly inquired and Akane started to get somewhat annoyed. Why was he wasting all this time talking about food, when he should just eat it?  
  
"I know what I'm doing. I don't need to taste it to know that it's good." Akane announced.  
  
"Even Kasumi needs to taste her food, to be certain that it's good and she has been doing it for much longer then you have." Ranma countered. "Do you believe that you're a better cook then Kasumi?" he argued.  
  
"Well... No, but..." Akane hesitantly answered, wondering just what was wrong here. Why was he doing this, saying these things. Why wasn't he eating her delicious dinner?  
  
"So, you agree that Kasumi, is a better cook then you? But Kasumi still has to taste her own cooking to be certain that it's okay? Then why don't you? After all, she's the better cook, but she still can't be certain that her cooking is okay? Then, how can you be so sure?" Ranma continued and Akane blinked several times. Was... Was Ranma winning an debate? Against her? No, no. No. Surely not. She was imagining things.  
  
"I... I just do." Akane responded uncertainly, then drew herself up and straightened her back. "Stop wasting time talking, Ranma. Why don't you just try it?" she inquired.  
  
"Why don't you try it?" Ranma countered. "After all, Kasumi tries her own cooking before serving it. You should as well." he continued and unwrapped the bento, opening it and holding it out towards her. "Kasumi does it." he repeated and Akane grew uncertain, staring at the chopsticks he was offering her.  
  
Kasumi did try her own cooking, didn't she? Akane had seen her do it lots of times. She never understood the point of it, Kasumi's cooking was always delicious, so why wasting her time with all that tasting?  
  
Kasumi was a good cook, a great cook. Akane knew that. Perhaps there was something to what Ranma was saying?  
  
Naw, what was she thinking. This was Ranma!  
  
"Well, if you don't want to try it... Daisuke, here!" Akane cheerfully announced, grabbed the chopsticks and stuck a piece of daikon into Daisukes open mouth. It had first seemed as if he was on the verge of saying something, protesting against something, but she must be imagining things. No doubt he opened it to accept the delicious treat she was offering him.  
  
"Akane, no!" Ranma protested, jumping out of his seat.  
  
"GAH!" Daisuke protested, his face turning into an unhealthy-looking color, sweat appearing on his forehead and his eyes bulging out of their sockets. "Gah!" he repeated, then blinked, froze and put a hand to his mouth. "Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh, dear... Oh... Oh man! Outta the way! Coming through!" he continued, then shot into motion, streaking through the classroom and out of the door, heading towards the little boys room.  
  
"Ranma! It's bad enough when you do it yourself, you don't have to put your friends up to these stupid games!" Akane shouted, stomping her foot on the floor.  
  
"Huh? I didn't..." Ranma started to protest, but was cut off.  
  
"There is nothing wrong with my cooking!" Akane insisted, spun around and focused her gaze on Sayuri, who suddenly paled and leaned back, away from Akane. "Don't worry, Sayuri. Ranma and Daisuke are just being assholes, I'm a great cook!" she said and approached Sayuri, snatching up a tempura shrimp from the box.  
  
"Akane, I'm sorry. But this is for your own good." Ranma suddenly announced, then Akane gasped as he grasped her nose and face, pulled back and forced her mouth open, then threw the shrimp into Akane's own mouth.  
  
"Ptoi!" Akane instantly spat it out, her tongue stung and there was a bitter taste in her entire mouth. What had that stupid jerk done to her food?! "Ranma! What did you put on that? It tasted awful!"  
  
"Everything you cook besides Curry taste awful, Akane." Ranma sighed. "Perhaps it's the industrial cleaning agents, perhaps it's the splinters off the chopping board, perhaps it's the baking soda. I don't know and I do not want to know. But the only thing you have ever made that was even remotely edible, is your Curry. The rest of it is just plain awful. I don't think there's anyone other then Ryoga and myself who has the kind of iron stomachs that we can force it down without causing permanent injury to ourselves." he continued, then forced Akane into her own seat, putting the bento down in front of her.  
  
"You've never really seemed to grasp the fact that you're a horrible cook or that I haven't been kidding. So... Like I said, Akane. I'm sorry, but this is for your own good." Ranma stated, then claimed the chopsticks and started feeding her!  
  
Akane had never been that humiliated in her entire life. Everything he forced into her mouth tasted just plain awful, she couldn't force herself to swallow a single bite, but actually had to spit it out the moment it came into her mouth.  
  
Her protests did her no good. She tried to slap him, but he dodged everything she threw at him, then finally used a few pressure points that paralyzed her arms completely. When she refused to open her mouth, he forced it open. She tried to kick him, but he danced out of the way.  
  
It would have been bad enough if he had done it in private, but most of the class was there to witness the whole mess!  
  
When he finally relented, having forced at least one bite of everything she had made into her own mouth, he stepped away and returned her arms to normal. Akane fumed, sitting as she did in the middle of a half-circle of food she had spat out. Her food. Her delicious food, all of it ruined.  
  
She didn't know how he had done it, but the jerk had to have done something to her bento to ruin it!  
  
"RRrrrraaaanma!" she bellowed and bolted out of her seat. "You jerk!" Akane shrieked, then attempted to slap him, only to have him quite calmly block it with a negligent half-hearted gesture. "What the hell did you do to my bento? Why did you have to go and ruin it?"  
  
"You're an awful cook, Akane. The sooner you realize it, the better for you." Ranma stated.  
  
"You fiend! You jerk! You idiot! You asshole!" Akane shouted and their classmates started to back away from them, teachers coming over to see what was going on. The sound of his precious tigress in distress even attracted Kuno Tatewaki, the True Blunder of Furinkan High. "I hate you! I hate you!"  
  
"Akane. It's for your own good. Not to mention the household accounts. Do you know how expensive it is to restock the kitchen, laundry room and cleaning closet every time you cook?" Ranma inquired and this was the final nail in the coffin. Now the jerk was starting to talk with her about money, as if he was some sort of Nabiki junior! "I don't even know why you insist on raiding the laundry room or cleaning closet for ingredients, you ever see Kasumi using anything from any of those places in her cooking?!" he continued, finally starting to loose his cool. Up until now, he'd managed to keep a tight rein on his temper, but it was starting to slip.  
  
"Shut up, you asshole! You're not even half a man, you freak! Your damn father is more human then you are, despite the fact that his curse turns him into an animal instead of a girl!" Akane shouted and tried to slap him again, only to be blocked once again. The mallet came out, only to be snatched away and tossed aside as if the imposing weapon wasn't even a threat. But the one thing he couldn't stop, was words. And the words were having an impact on him, she could see that. Where slaps, fists, kicks and mallets couldn't hurt him, words could. And if that was the case, then by the Kami, she would hit him where it hurt.  
  
"That's right, you freak. You inhuman perverted monster." Akane spat out. "I hate you." she informed him, enjoying the brief look of pain on his face as he cringed at her words. "Do you see him, Kuno? Do you see the 'man' in front of you? Do you want to know who he is? No, what he is? He's a freak, a freak who turns into a girl when he's splashed with cold water. And not just any old girl either, oh no! He turns into your precious little pig-tailed goddess!" Akane revealed, taking a great amount of pleasure out of hearing Kuno's startled gasp, as well as Ranma's pained expression at her revelation.  
  
Coming as it did from the mouth of his fierce tigress, Kuno had no choice but to accept her words as the truth.  
  
"Truly? The fiend Saotome is the pig-tailed goddess?" Kuno inquired, needing to have the incredible statement confirmed.  
  
"Yes. The girl you have been lusting after, is none other then Saotome Ranma. The freak." Akane spat out. "Even you make a better match then this freak, whom I've somehow gotten engaged to!" she finished, causing Ranma to flinch once again and something in his eyes, a brief glimmer of light which somehow only appeared when he was looking at her, to flicker briefly and then die out. For some reason she couldn't quite understand, Akane suddenly felt cold, alone. As if something precious had just been taken away from her.  
  
"Akane." Ranma said.  
  
"Yeah, pervert? What is it?" she snarled in response, burying that intense feeling of loss that had come over her just now in a red haze of fury.  
  
"Ryoga is P-Chan. He has a Jusenkyo curse as well. You've been sleeping with Ryoga in your bed, undressed with Ryoga watching and taken baths with Ryoga watching." Ranma informed her in a cold voice. "Now who's the pervert?" he inquired, then quite calmly walked over to his desk, grabbed his bag, packed away his books and left the room through the window, jumping down to the schoolyard before anyone could see him starting to cry.  
  
Leaving behind an open-mouthed Akane, who had been stunned speechless by Ranma's revelation.  
  


End of Flashback Sequence 

  
  
"Don't be ridiculous, boy. It's just another one of the silly arguments you love-birds have all the time, you'll make up and be back on the marriage track in no time flat." Genma snorted dismissively. He was still somewhat pale, but appeared to have mostly recovered from the shock of Ranma's earlier announcement. "Right? Right?!" he added, sidling up to Ranma and wrapping a fatherly arm around his sons shoulders. "Have you forgotten the contract, foolish boy?! Tell everybody that it was just a joke! Quick!" he hissed through the corner of his mouth, tightening the grip around Ranma's shoulders.  
  
"Not this time, pops." Ranma replied icily. "Give it up. It's over between me and Akane."  
  
"Fool!" Genma snarled under his breath, then looked over at Akane. No help there, the girl was a mess, just barely managing to prevent herself from succumbing into a sobbing mess. Nodoka was fingering her sword, clearly undecided in regards of what to do about the current situation. Soun was still sobbing, his demon-head slowly fading away as he no longer fed any Ki into the illusion. Kasumi looked somewhat ruffled, but silently observed the scene with a mildly disturbed smile. Nabiki was impassively observing matters, as if they were of no concern whatsoever to her. "Well, no great loss. Tendo still has two other beautiful daughters that can marry you and fulfil the sacred oath between the Tendo and Saotome family." he pressed on, turning Ranma around to face Nabiki and Kasumi in turn. If he worked quickly, perhaps Nodoka wouldn't put that sword to use or insist that he actually go through with that ridiculous promise! "So, who will it be, son?" he asked, removing his arm and backing off a few steps to observe his son.  
  
Ranma sighed, looking over at Nabiki, but found no support there. She was silently observing the scene and her expression never changed as he looked over at her. He looked over at Kasumi, meeting her gaze and looking into her eyes. Her expression gave away no more then Nabiki's did and her eyes revealed nothing further that was of any help to him.  
  
"Well, I know Nabiki's position on the matter already." Ranma commented. "How about you, Kasumi? Could you ever consider marrying a freak like me?" he inquired.  
  
"I do not think that you are a freak, Ranma, and you should not refer to yourself as such." Kasumi gently chided him. "You are a confused young man, carrying a weighty burden while being unfairly pressured by various parties. You're uncouth, brash, somewhat arrogant and would do well to consider your words before letting them out of your mouth. But you're not a freak." she went on, then smiled gently at him as he appeared to grow more dejected by every word out of her mouth. "You are also honorable, extremely loyal, kind, dedicated, forgiving and one of the most interesting men it has ever been my privilege to meet." she continued and stood up, walking over in order to take his two callused hands in hers. "In order to fulfill the agreement between the Tendo and Saotome families, I, Tendo Kasumi, will accept the engagement." she announced.  
  
Ranma's heart nearly broke as she looked up at him, a gentle smile on her lips and a broken look in her eyes. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then opened his eyes again intending to give up his name in order to prevent this marvelous young woman from being stuck in a marriage with a man she did not love. He opened his mouth, but closed it again as Kasumi put her right index finger against his lips, silencing him before he had a chance to speak.  
  
"Let me do this for you, Ranma." Kasumi mouthed and retracted her finger from his lips. "Please?" she mouthed again, her back blocking the view of her face from their respective families. Only Ranma could see what she was doing.  
  
Ranma opened and closed his mouth several times, his mind a whirling mess of conflicting thoughts and emotions. He closed his eyes again, forcing his mind to focus and then opened then again. He was about to refuse again, when he happened to glance at Kasumi again and saw her eyes pleading with him as she mouthed 'Please?' again.  
  
"In order to fulfill the agreement between the Tendo and Saotome families, I, Saotome Ranma, will accept the engagement." he announced in a clear and determined voice, though his eyes revealed that he was anything but.  
  
The End! ( For now... )  
  


Evil-Minded Cliff-Hanger-Lovin' Demented Hawkieboy Speaks Up 

  
  
'Aint I a stinker? ;D  
  
Just think how much fun ya'll have bitin' your nails while waiting for my next update now!  
  


Evil Author Trails Off Into Disturbing Manical Chuckles 

  
  



	5. Five

Nabiki - Master of Anything Goes 

Nabiki - Master of Anything Goes[R]  
Niklas "Hawk" Jonsson  
  


Summary: Ranma made another bet with Nabiki? Won't he ever learn? Well, at least this time it's a bet on an Anything Goes Martial Arts fight between Ranma and Nabiki. Surely our pig-tailed hero is capable of defeating Nabiki, 'aint he? Will this be the one time Ranma actually manages to one-up Nabiki?  
  
Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2, the characters and whatnot are not mine, though I certainly wish they were! The story is mine though, all mine. This series deals with mature subject matters and violence. If this disturbs you, don't read. But if it does, then why the heck are you watching the show/reading the manga in the first place?  
  
Feedback/Flames: Yes, please. Both of them are equally fun to read, although I must admit that I greatly prefer the first variety. :)  
I can be found on ICQ as 21771860 or through e-mail as iamhawkyahoo.com, more stories are available at my nifty lil' site at http:www.hawksgalaxy.com or by clicking on my handle up above if you're reading this on fanfiction.net.  
  
"speech"  
emphasis/shouts/Kindred Domination/post-hypnotic triggers  
/thoughts/  
/telepathy/  
translation  
soundeffect/radio/telephone conversation/TV  
  


Previously, on 'Nabiki - Master of Anything Goes' 

  
  
Ranma's heart nearly broke as she looked up at him, a gentle smile on her lips and a broken look in her eyes. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then opened his eyes again intending to give up his name in order to prevent this marvelous young woman from being stuck in a marriage with a man she did not love. He opened his mouth, but closed it again as Kasumi put her right index finger against his lips, silencing him before he had a chance to speak.  
  
"Let me do this for you, Ranma." Kasumi mouthed and retracted her finger from his lips. "Please?" she mouthed again, her back blocking the view of her face from their respective families. Only Ranma could see what she was doing.  
  
Ranma opened and closed his mouth several times, his mind a whirling mess of conflicting thoughts and emotions. He closed his eyes again, forcing his mind to focus and then opened then again. He was about to refuse again, when he happened to glance at Kasumi again and saw her eyes pleading with him as she mouthed 'Please?' again.  
  
"In order to fulfil the agreement between the Tendo and Saotome families, I, Saotome Ranma, will accept the engagement." he announced in a clear and determined voice, though his eyes revealed that he was anything but.  
  


Roll credits 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Chapter Five:

  
  
"Why did you do it, Kasumi? What made you go along with it?" Ranma inquired, facing the woman serenely seated on the pillow opposite him. Once the deal had been made, there had been no preventing the old men from breaking out the Sake. The two of them had started their celebration instantly, chugging straight from the bottles. Akane had taken a small cup as well, though that was probably more due to wanting to drown out her sorrows then out of any desire to celebrate. Nabiki had merely smirked and congratulated the two of them on their impending nuptials, before leaving the room. Nodoka had still been in a somewhat shocked state of mind from Ranma's earlier revelation that he was prepared to give up his family, in order to get out of the engagement. She still retained enough mental faculties to serve Genma and Soun their sake, but the expression on her face was severely disturbed as Ranma and Kasumi left.  
  
Ranma gently twirled the bottle of Sake in his hands, slowly getting used to the unfamiliar weight in his hands. He'd reached for a bottle as well, after having seen the look in Kasumi's eyes as she accepted the arrangement, he felt that he needed the alcohol, but he hadn't been able to bring himself to drink any of it yet. He and Kasumi had watched the proceedings for a while, then Kasumi had stood up and asked him to walk her back to her room. Once there, she had invited him in and locked the door behind them.  
  
"Why did you?" Kasumi countered, but didn't wait for an answer. "My answer will most likely be the same as yours."  
  
"I wasn't going to, but you insisted, remember?" Ranma responded, moving the bottle from hand to hand in an absent manner.  
  
"And had I looked at you with true love in my gaze, what would your answer had been then?" Kasumi gently inquired.  
  
"I would have accepted." Ranma replied.  
  
"Why?" Kasumi asked. "You don't love me."  
  
"Honor." Ranma replied after a few moments.  
  
"Which is the precise reason why I accepted." Kasumi agreed, nodding in satisfaction.  
  
"But, you don't love me." Ranma protested.  
  
"And you don't love me." Kasumi countered.  
  
"But, that's different..." Ranma tried to explain, only to be cut off with a quiet chuckle from Kasumi.  
  
"How, Ranma? How is it different?" Kasumi inquired.  
  
"You deserve better." Ranma groused after a few moments of contemplative silence. "You deserve to marry a man that you really love."  
  
"Everybody deserves to marry the one they love." Kasumi agreed. "But it doesn't always work out that way, now does it? Just look at Shampoo or Ukyo." she continued and smiled a sad smile. "It would have been nice to marry for love, I guess. But I never really expected that to happen for me, not for a very long time now. Your and Akane's engagement have kept father busy, but if it hadn't kept so much of his attention, he probably would have tried to marry me and Nabiki off by now. If the two of you had gotten married, he most certainly would have directed his attention at me and Nabiki as soon as the rings were exchanged." she finished.  
  
"I guess. It just seems wrong, for it to happen to you. You're the nicest person I know, Kasumi. I just think that you deserve better then me." Ranma commented despondently.  
  
"Why, thank you, Ranma." Kasumi said with an honest smile on her lips. "It's nice to know that I'm so highly regarded by you." she added and then focused on him with a slightly disapproving look on her face. "But I won't stand for you talking yourself down like that. I'm not Akane, Ranma. I won't stand to have my fiancée having such a poor opinion of himself. If you truly had been such a bad person as you make yourself out as, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I could have just went along with the engagement and done my duties, Ranma. I didn't have to get out of my way to speak to you like this."  
  
"Then, why are you?" Ranma inquired curiously.  
  
"Because I like you, Ranma." Kasumi instantly replied. "I even love you, in a way. Not the marrying kind of love or even boyfriend-girlfriend kind of love, but I do love you. Neither of us really deliberately picked this engagement, but since we're both in it, we can make an effort to turn it into a workable one. Perhaps, one day, our feelings will change and we might grow to love each other. Or perhaps we'll never be more then friends who happen to be married to each other. One never knows. But unless we try to make it work, we'll never even be that."  
  
"I guess you're right, Kasumi. Like always." Ranma replied with a faint smile on his lips.  
  
"Wives and wives to be always are, you know. You would do well to remember that." Kasumi commented with a faint giggle, causing Ranma's faint smile to turn wider and more honest. "Ranma, can I ask you a question?" she inquired.  
  
"Sure thing, Kasumi. You needn't even ask." Ranma assured her.  
  
"I'm glad." she commented and the smile vanished, a more serious look appearing on her face. "Your announcement took me by surprise, I'll admit that. But seeing how well you've gotten along with Nabiki lately, I can't help but wonder one thing. Why didn't you ask her?"  
  
"I did ask her. I told her yesterday what I would do this morning. She wasn't all that thrilled with the notion of getting engaged to me." Ranma understated with a wry smile.  
  
"Oh..." Kasumi responded, then plastered a smile on her lips. "Her loss, I guess."  
  
"Yeah." Ranma agreed with a fake smile. /Your loss, more like. Poor Kasumi./ Ranma thought. She really did deserve better then this, better then him.  
  


* * *

  
  
Nabiki looked at the books with a pleased smirk on her face, the figures for the last month were the best ever. She had made more money running the parlor for three weeks then her best two months doing her 'regular' business. Giving that up had been an easy choice, considering. Granted, she had to work almost as hard to keep the parlor running as her betting rings, extortion schemes, information trades and selling things, pictures and services. It wasn't quite as much fun, but it was easier and more profitable.  
  
She guessed that she might come to miss seeing the terror in peoples eyes as she did business with them and knew that she would miss the respect it garnered her, but the figures spoke for themselves. She chuckled at Ranma's naive belief that he had come out on top in their agreement, had won something by getting her to give up her business. She couldn't have kept it up anyway due to lack of time, since the parlor took up so much of her time. Or at the very least not to the extent that was required to make it successful.  
  
She put the books on her nightstand and rolled over in her bed, looking up at the roof as she crossed her arms behind her head. She was slightly disappointed that she hadn't made use of the opportunity to lower Ranma's fee in return for her 'agreeing' to drop her dirty business. She shook her head, blaming it all on the slight stomachache she'd been suffering from in the last couple of days. No doubt that was responsible for causing her to loose her edge.  
  
/Ranma.../  
  
If anyone had told her a month ago that she would go easy on him in a deal, she would have laughed them in the face. It was odd, how the unsophisticated lout had managed to get under her skin in the last month. She almost, heavens forbid, considered him a friend at this point! Granted, he was trouble on two legs and couldn't maintain an interesting conversation to save his life, but somehow, he'd managed to grow on her none the less.  
  
Not enough to make her seriously consider accepting his offer to get engaged with him, of course. But it was quite an accomplishment, considering the others in the very small group of people whom Nabiki considered her friends. She was close enough to three of her associates to consider them friends, as opposed to minions or associates. There was a fourth in her tennis class. That was it. That was the amount of people Nabiki in private would refer to as friends.  
  
In public, the amount was slightly larger, but that was mainly because it was good business for her to do so.  
  
Every single one of those four were, like her, highly intelligent, suave and blessed with a dark sense of humor. They just clicked and had done so ever since their first meeting. They were truly five of a kind.  
  
Ranma didn't fit that mould at all, he was as far from her other friends as he could possibly get and not only genderwise. Well, at least whenever he wasn't in his cursed form. And yet, he'd somehow managed to get under her skin and slither through her defenses.  
  
The past month had actually been fun! She just couldn't get over that fact. The first week, she'd nearly run Ranma into the ground, sending him on grueling and largely pointless tasks, mainly for her own amusement. Then, she'd discovered a better use for him. She supposed that was the turning point, by finding something about him that she enjoyed more then humiliating him, she'd unconsciously upgraded him from useless freeloader with astounding humor potential to somewhat useful freeloader with astounding humor potential.  
  
She still didn't know what had possessed her to start giving him pointers and shaping him into a different person, however. Getting him to lay off with the insults, she knew. Not only was her special nutcracker technique satisfying as hell to use, but his constant bitching and off-hand insulting comments had been grating on her nerves once he directed them at her. But whatever in the world had caused her to help him develop an actual spine? Whatever had caused her to teach him the finer points of teasing? Whatever had made her want him to be able to stand up to women, in a non Martial Arts kind of way?  
  
Well, other then for the fun of it all, of course. She still couldn't help but smile whenever she thought of just how many times she had caused him to blush or stutter during training, it was almost... Cute. She had always found him gorgeous, he was a delicious example of a man and if he'd only been blessed with a better personality, she might not have been quite as quick to foist him off on Akane as she had been when he first arrived. But cute? That was a first.  
  
Nabiki didn't do 'cute', didn't appreciate 'cute'. She had always gotten 'beautiful', 'sexy', 'gorgeous' and 'studly', but 'cute' was something she hadn't been able to appreciate for a very long time now. She just didn't understand the seeming obsession most people seemed to have with 'cute'. Not everyone was as bad as Azusa, but most people she knew still seemed to get all gooey-eyed at 'cute'.  
  
She kept on looking at the roof, enjoying the relaxed way she felt. Those massages truly were heavenly. She had been under a lot of self-imposed stress for years now. These last couple of weeks were the first ones she could remember since her mothers death that she hadn't been tense as a coiled spring, just waiting to burst or snap, whichever came first. She had unwound somewhat during their infrequent vacations, but never as much as she had lately.  
  
Come to think of it, she hadn't gotten her daily fix and it was way past time to get that corrected. She reached for her cellphone on the nightstand, only to see the beeper she had lent Ranma lying next to it.  
  
/Oh, right... His month is over.../ she thought and sighed. They had yet to come to an agreement about payment for her own continued massages. She rubbed her temples and flopped back onto the bed, staring at the roof. If she had accepted the engagement, she might have been able to persuade him to do it for free. After all, she was his fiancée, wasn't she? She somehow didn't believe that future sister-in-law would be enough to get him to part with those divine treatments, at least not any longer. He knew better then that, now.  
  
Not that letting him slip through her fingers had been a mistake, of course. He was more trouble then he was worth, no doubt about that. She felt a twinge of guilt for dumping him on Kasumi, just as she had at first when she dumped him on Akane. But even if she loved her sisters, it wasn't enough for her to want to put up with him and all his flaws. There weren't quite as many now as when they first met him, much thank to her working him over in the last couple of weeks, but there were still quite a lot of them.  
  
The fact that she had gotten started on him for Kasumi, eased her guilt somewhat and she decided to let it go. At least Kasumi had gotten off to a better start with Ranma then Akane had. And Kasumi could be quite persistent whenever she wanted something. No doubt she would want finish off the work that Nabiki had started and turn Ranma into a respectable young man. It might take her a while, quite a while, as a matter of fact. But Nabiki had full confidence in her older sisters ability to do so.  
  
Kasumi could do everything, once she got really determined, she didn't stop until she'd succeeded to her own satisfaction. At first, her own modest efforts as a cook had been nearly as bad as Akanes recent performances, but she had persevered, studied, asked questions and now, she was a highly accomplished cook. At first, she had just barely been able to tell one end of a broom from the other and the washing machine had been a nearly unsolvable enigma, but she was now a perfect housekeeper.  
  
Granted, Kasumi had to give up on a lot of things to accomplish this, but that just showed how determined she was, how much she was willing to give in order to reach her goals.  
  


* * *

  
  
"Hey, 'Kane." Ranma greeted Akane as he joined her in the couch, his gaze heading for the TV. Akane glanced away from the TV program she hadn't really been watching anyway and instead directed her gaze at her ex-fiancée. He looked... Drained. He didn't have any of his usual energy, arrogance or confidence. It was usually apparent no matter what he did. Even when doing something as calm as reading or sleeping, he somehow managed to radiate energy and cockiness. But now, he seemed merely a shell of his former self, listless and devoid of energy.  
  
"Hey." she responded in kind, then turned her gaze back towards the TV. She didn't quite know how to act around him now, how the two of them were supposed to interact. When Ranma snapped at school, she had rapidly came to the conclusion that things would never be the same ever again. She just hadn't been quite sure just what sort of changes would come about from their argument. She had suspected that Ranma breaking the engagement might be part of it, but hadn't been really sure until his announcement at breakfast.  
  
She had actually been sort of surprised that Nabiki hadn't snatched him up, considering how tight the two of them had seemed lately. Apparently, he'd spoken with Nabiki sometime before breakfast as she recalled him saying something about knowing Nabiki answer already.  
  
She guessed that she really shouldn't have been surprised. Nabiki wasn't fond of much, and loved even less. Akane guessed it had been foolish of her to assume that Nabiki would feel anything other then possibly mild fondness for Ranma.  
  
She very nearly wanted to laugh at what she had first thought was going on when she discovered Ranma giving Nabiki a massage.  
  
Either that, or cry.  
  
To think that she had actually thought that there was something going on between the two of them! The Martial Art fanatic and the money-grubbing fanatic! One didn't notice anything that wasn't related to Martial Arts and the other didn't notice anything that wasn't related to something she could earn money on. Of course, since there was very little Nabiki couldn't make money off, it was very few things that she didn't notice.  
  
If any.  
  
It was remarkable how much mental clarity she had gained since the engagement went into the crapper. Not being a part of it any longer, and knowing that she probably never would again unless some sort of miracle took place, had given her an objectivity to it all that she had lacked ever since first meeting Ranma. In hindsight, many of the things she had said and done made her want to cry her heart out in frustration. Not all her actions had been horrible, cruel or awful, not even a majority of them as a matter of fact. But there were still far to many examples of her being horrible towards poor Ranma for her own peace of mind.  
  
Granted, he hadn't always been a sterling example of good behavior either, but it was herself that she was most disappointed in. She had believed herself to be a bigger person then she had actually been towards Ranma. Looking back on it all now, she had reached the conclusion that she was taking out all of her confusion, frustration, insecurity and feelings of inadequacy towards both herself and the mess she'd somehow wound up in, against Ranma.  
  
Instead of actually dealing with things, she had shoved them all aside in favor of lashing out towards Ranma as a way of distracting herself.  
  
The Akane sitting in the couch at this moment, had experienced more mental and emotional growth in the last day, then she had in the entire last year!  
  
And she now regretted not having done it before, before it was too late.  
  
She glanced over at Ranma again, allowing her gaze to drift over him from head to toe. She could admit to herself, now, that she had loved him, that she had been in love with him. Perhaps she still did and was, in a way. She would certainly take him back right now, had he been willing to take her back. But she knew that he wasn't and so, had decided to move on. Or at least, try to do so. She had a feeling that getting over Ranma, would be one of the hardest things she had ever been forced to do.  
  
Living with him and going to school with him, wouldn't make it any easier.  
  
"How are you feeling?" she inquired and blinked at his humorless chuckle.  
  
"Don't know yet." he admitted with a shake of his head. "I think I'm still in shock. Ask me again in a week." he continued, leaning his head against the back of the couch. "You?" he inquired.  
  
"The same." she replied as she pondered his answer. It appeared as if she wasn't the only one who had done a bit of growing in the last day. Of course, Ranma had spent the last couple of weeks growing, but it appeared as if the last day had provided him with additional opportunities to do so. "How's Kasumi?" she inquired, knowing that he had spent the better part of the day cooped up with Kasumi in her room.  
  
The old Akane would have busted in on them and clobbered Ranma for being a pervert trying to take advantage of her sister.  
  
The new Akane knew that Ranma would rather cut his own throat before harming Kasumi in any way. She kept him fed, clothed, fed, always had a smile for him, fed him, cleaned the guest room and, once again, fed him. For someone who had been on the road for most of his life and lived under harsher conditions then Akane had ever heard about before, Kasumi was probably viewed by him as some sort of saint or a benevolent goddess of generosity and kindness.  
  
"Self-sacrificing, kind, benevolent, hard-working and the most amazing person it has ever been my privilege to meet." Ranma responded with a sad smile. "And unfortunately, she's now stuck with me." he added and wiped at his eyes with the back of his left hand, before any tears had the opportunity to emerge.  
  
"She didn't have to do it, you know." Akane reminded him, about to venture forth her opinion that Kasumi might like him.  
  
"No, she had to. We all forced her hands." Ranma commented before she could speak up. "When I refused you and Nabiki refused me, she was the only one left. If she had refused as well, the agreement would have been broken. I've spoken more with her today and heard her talk more today, then I have in all the time since I first got here. I understand her a little better now. We talked a lot about honor and she takes it just as seriously as I do, perhaps even more so. I never really understood that about her before, but I do now. With you and your sister out of the running, she had no choice but to accept." Ranma went on and raised his gaze to the roof. "At first, I thought she did it out of kindness for me, so that I wouldn't have to give up my name, my family. But I don't think that was ever a part of why she did it. Or at least not the main reason."  
  
"I value my honor so greatly because that's just about all I have that's my own. Before today, I never would have suspected that the same was true for Kasumi as well." Ranma finished.  
  
"I... I thought she liked you." Akane said, looking with wide eyes at Ranma.  
  
"And she does. She just doesn't love me." Ranma responded.  
  
"Can... Can I ask you a question, Ranma?" Akane eventually asked, after a long period of silence.  
  
"Sure, 'Kane." he replied, shifting his attention from the roof to her.  
  
"Did you?" she asked.  
  
"Did I what?" Ranma asked, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.  
  
"Did you ever love me? Were you ever in love with me?" she clarified.  
  
"I... I don't know. Perhaps. Perhaps I did, perhaps I was. I just don't know." Ranma replied and pondered the matter for nearly half a minute. "I think I did love you. No, scratch that. I did. And I still love you. I just don't know if I was ever in love with you." he finally admitted.  
  
"Why didn't you ever say anything?" Akane inquired, feeling as if her heart was about to break all over again. /He loved me! He still loves me!/ "If I'd just known..." Akane said, but couldn't bring herself to finish. /If only I'd known, I wouldn't have felt so damned insecure! I would have treated you better!/  
  
"I didn't know if you felt the same way. I guess I needed to hear you say it first." he finally responded.  
  
"Yeah. Me too." Akane admitted, shaking her head. "We really were too perfect for each other, weren't we? Two of a kind. Two insecure oafs too proud to ever admit that we needed the other." she continued with a humorless chuckle, wiping a few tears from her eyes.  
  
"I guess." Ranma agreed. "Of course, our fathers didn't exactly help matters." he added with a derisive snort.  
  
"Nor your other fiancées." Akane added with a shake of her head. "Or Nabiki."  
  
"I can't exactly bring myself to be mad at either of those, however. Not after getting to know Nabiki and after my conversation with Kasumi before. They all had their reasons for what they did." Ranma said and reached into his shirt, withdrawing the still unopened bottle of sake he had snatched up this morning.  
  
"Do you drink, Ranma?" Akane asked in surprise, trying to recall if she had ever seen him drink any of his own before, without being forced to it by the situation or by someone actually physically forcing him to drink.  
  
"No. But today, I think I'll make an exception. Things seem calm enough today that I might be able to get away with not being at 100% for an evening." Ranma eventually responded, before looking over at her. "Do you want any?" he inquired and she nodded after a brief hesitation, reaching for her empty cup on the table and holding it out towards him.  
  
"I think I'll join you." Akane said as Ranma refilled her cup, then chugged straight from the bottle, wheezing and coughing as he finally removed it. "Careful with that, Ranma." she advised him, as she carefully sipped from her own cup. "You know that you can't handle alcohol very well." she added, well remembering the mess he had made of himself in the past whenever he'd gotten drunk for one reason or another. She actually laughed as she remembered the school play and his drunken performance there.  
  
"Heh, I guess you do have a point." he slurred, his low tolerance already rearing its ugly head. "Here's to broken engagements, may it at least lead you to the life you deserve." he toasted and clanked the neck of his bottle against her cup, before he started drinking straight from the bottle again.  
  
"To broken engagements." Akane agreed and downed the contents of her cup in one go. "And being married to Kasumi will probably make you happy, Ranma." she admonished him.  
  
"Not to mention feeling guilty for ruining her life, undeserving of my happiness and most of all, undeserving of someone as wonderful as Kasumi." he admitted in a drunken slur.  
  
Akane didn't have an answer for that, so she settled for letting Ranma refill her cup and keep him company as the two of them made short work of the bottle, as they drowned their joint misery in an alcoholic haze.  
  
The End! ( For now... )  
  



	6. Six

Nabiki - Master of Anything Goes R  
Niklas "Hawk" Jonsson 

Summary: Ranma made another bet with Nabiki? Won't he ever learn? Well, at least this time it's a bet on an Anything Goes Martial Arts fight between Ranma and Nabiki. Surely our pig-tailed hero is capable of defeating Nabiki, 'aint he? Will this be the one time Ranma actually manages to one-up Nabiki?

Disclaimer: Ranma ½, the characters and whatnot are not mine, though I certainly wish they were! The story is mine though, all mine. This series deals with mature subject matters and violence. If this disturbs you, don't read. But if it does, then why the heck are you watching the show/reading the manga in the first place?

Feedback/Flames: Yes, please. Both of them are equally fun to read, although I must admit that I greatly prefer the first variety. :)  
I can be found on ICQ as 21771860 or through e-mail as iamhawk at yahoo dot com, more stories are available at my nifty lil' site at hawksgalaxy dot com or by clicking on my handle up above if you're reading this on fanfiction dot net.

"speech"  
emphasis/shouts/Kindred Domination/post-hypnotic triggers  
/thoughts/  
/telepathy/  
translation  
+soundeffect/radio/telephone conversation/TV+

And now a word from our writer 

Heh, another fic that hasn't been updated for like a year or so. :) Well, what the heck. I was feeling a tad generous and somewhat inspired, so I spent the lions share of my lunch break at work today writing this chapter instead of taking a smoke in the sunshine that graced the harbour area where the office is located. I've had a chapter six more or less finished for three or four months, but like with so many other things, I wasn't entirely satisfied with it. My main disagreement with it, was that the changes from chapter five to what I was going to use as the sixth chapter seemed a bit rushed and I needed something to put in between them.

I was pondering this very dilemma when I decided I needed to get some writing done while the creativity was a'burstin' with youthful energy and Eureka. The solution came to me and what I had intended to use as the sixth chapter, suddenly became the eight, as this 'real' sixth chapter and roughly half of the new seventh were transferred from head to hard drive in 45 minutes or so.

I really wished that I could be so focused all the time when the creativity levels are fully jacked up. But usually I just wind up writing a paragraph or two in fifteen or twenty different stories, instead of thirty to forty paragraphs in a single story. Ah well, I guess that has advantages too as all my stories do progress, it's just that the progress is annoyingly slow most of the time. C'est la vie.

I'm currently mainly working on 'The Kanako Factor' BTW, just in case any of the persistent naggers constantly badgering me about it are interested. Though considering that TKF is the one of my stories that generates the most pleas to wind up in my inbox, I suppose there might be one or two people out there who're still interested in that one. :)

And now we return you to your regular scheduled reading 

Previously, on 'Nabiki - Master of Anything Goes' 

"Heh, I guess you do have a point." he slurred, his low tolerance already rearing its ugly head. "Here's to broken engagements, may it at least lead you to the life you deserve." he toasted and clanked the neck of his bottle against her cup, before he started drinking straight from the bottle again.

"To broken engagements." Akane agreed and downed the contents of her cup in one go. "And being married to Kasumi will probably make you happy, Ranma." she admonished him.

"Not to mention feeling guilty for ruining her life, undeserving of my happiness and most of all, undeserving of someone as wonderful as Kasumi." he admitted in a drunken slur.

Akane didn't have an answer for that, so she settled for letting Ranma refill her cup and keep him company as the two of them made short work of the bottle, as they drowned their joint misery in an alcoholic haze.

Roll credits 

* * *

Chapter Six:

Genma and Soun of course argued for a pretty much instant wedding the moment they sobered up the morning afterwards.

A punctured demon-head and a soaking wet panda later, they reluctantly agreed to stay out of Ranmas and Kasumis relationship.

A promise which they actually managed to uphold.

For like, three or four minutes. Then it was back to the old drawing board, where the two of them plotted and schemed for how to bring about a marriage as soon as humanly, in Genmas case pandaly, possible.

Ranma was feeling a bit under the weather, but was relieved to note that he hadn't become as completely zonked out as Genma occasionally got when he overindulged in strong drinks. Ranma had shared the one bottle with Akane and let it go at that, so he wasn't feeling quite 100 at the moment, but at least he was up and about at more or less his usual levels of capability.

His seat at the breakfast table had shifted, so that he was now sitting next to Kasumi. It felt wrong, but he had to admit that it was kinda nice to be able to eat his breakfast in peace, without having to defend the food from his pops.

Akane was muted and withdrawn, black bags underneath her eyes. She hadn't slept all that well and she definitively felt the effects of the alcohol she'd had the evening before. She'd felt a brief flash of... Something... When she noted that Ranma wasn't seated next to her anymore. She couldn't quite identify the quagmire of emotions that particular revelation brought up, but she eventually decided that whatever it was, she didn't really like it.

Nabiki too was muted and withdrawn with black bags underneath her eyes. But that wasn't anything unusual for her. She was hardly human until she'd had some sugar and caffeine in her system in the mornings, the most horrible time of the day for the middle Tendo sister. If the events of yesterday had affected her in any manner, she kept it well under wraps.

Kasumi was her usual cheerful self, but to the perceptive viewer, it seemed as if her smile was just a smidgeon more stiff this morning. But it brightened up some whenever she glanced at Ranma and her motherly gaze was just as warm as ever. Ranma instantly decided that he needed to have another talk with her.

Genma was contemplative, but the smile on his lips and the happy sparkle in his eyes left no doubt as to what his feelings on this matter were. Quite obviously, he imagined a rapidly approaching marriage to be in the future.

Soun was muted as well, his mood swinging wildly. He was incredibly pleased at times, but whenever his gaze found its way to Kasumi, he grew pensive and hints of sadness could be seen in his features and expression.

Nodoka had returned home last night.

Other then the occasional request to pass a condiment or Nabiki asking her father for the business section of the newspaper when he was done with it, breakfast was consumed in sombre silence.

* * *

"Saotome!"

"Oh, no." Ranma sighed and slowly turned to face Kuno. "What is it now, Kuno?" he asked, wondering just why the deluded upperclassman hadn't attacked him yet.

"Is it true?" Kuno demanded to know.

"Yeah. I'm the pig-tailed girl." Ranma confirmed.

"I require no confirmation of that. The word of my beauteous tigress is sufficient." Kuno proudly proclaimed. "My inquiry was as to the possibility that you have abandoned your foul campaign to unrightfully claim the fair Tendo Akane as yours, corrupting her to better suit your twisted ways! The mercenary Nabiki hath informed me that you have sought out another to bend to your demonic ways! Is this true?"

Ranma considered Kuno's delusions and how to properly respond to them for a few seconds, before he sighed.

"I 'aint engaged to Akane no more. The engagement has shifted to her oldest sister Kasumi instead." Ranma confirmed with a faint shrug.

"So the mercenary spoke the truth." Kuno reasoned and nodded to himself. "I pray that even a depraved sorcerous being as yourself knows better then to treat such a delicate flower with anything but the utmost respect. Should I hear the merest mentioning of you mistreating the gentle angel in any way, I shall fall upon you like a very respectable amount of construction material and mete out the punishment of heaven itself unto you. So speaks the Blue Thunder. Know it to be true!"

"Kuno. I would rather take my own life then hurt Kasumi in any way, shape or manner." Ranma spat out.

"I see that even a corrupted being such as yourself still harbour some slight measure of honour. Very well, I approve. You may date the gentle angel of the Tendo household, so sayeth Kuno Tatewaki!" Kuno announced.

"I'm so happy that you approve." Ranma grunted sarcastically. "And the fact that Akane is now a single woman again wouldn't happen to have something to do with that approval, Kuno-sempai?"

"Tendo Kasumi hath made a noble sacrifice, surrendering her innocent self to your depraved ways, so that her youngest sister may be liberated from your foul clutches and set free to seek sweet bliss in my arms." Kuno said and clapped his hands together. "Her noble sacrifice will never be forgotten."

Ranma was silent for nearly a full minute, before he nodded.

"No, it won't." he agreed and continued towards the main school building, falling even deeper into his depressed funk. Kuno was an all-out no-holds-barred weirdo, but he did have sort of a point this time. Kasumi had nobly sacrificed herself by engaging herself to him. He could never allow himself to forget what she'd given up for him.

He felt like going back and smacking Kuno around for a bit in order to relieve some tension, but an unprovoked assault just wasn't his thing. That was the kind of stuff Kuno himself, Ryoga and Mousse did, but Saotome Ranma was a better man then that. Had to be a better man then that, to show himself somewhat worthy of Tendo Kasumi.

"Well, Saotome. That was unexpected." Nabiki said as Ranma entered the school and found her waiting for him inside.

"I thought you'd given up on your little business ventures?" Ranma said icily.

"I have." Nabiki responded with a note of surprise.

"And yet you sold the information about my new engagement to Kuno?" he countered.

"No. I gave it away for free. I really have stopped." Nabiki replied. "And a good thing too, I could have lost a lot of money if there had been any betting regarding the outcome of your usual fight. That there won't be a fight at all, is a real long-shot, but occasionally there's some brave soul that actually makes that bet."

"You gave away information for free?" Ranma exclaimed in astonishment.

"Ranma, we rake in about 675 000 yen a week on the massage parlour. Even with expenses, advertising and your cut, I still walk away with more money from that then I usually made in a good week in my former line of business." Nabiki replied with a bemused smile. "Besides, I make plenty of valuable contacts and get to know a lot of important people in the reception and waiting room, which I can put to good use once I'm out of school. I wouldn't risk any of that for the chance of earning some petty cash. If you walk, I'm left with an useless office and a three-month termination clause." she explained and smiled.

"Wow. I actually thought it'd be harder to get you to just walk away from it all." Ranma said as the two of them started ascending the stairs, heading for their respective classrooms.

"I couldn't keep up both my old and my new businesses at the same time even if I had wanted to. There just isn't enough time for it." Nabiki replied with a shrug. "Besides, it's kinda refreshing not having to sully my hands with underhanded dealings any longer."

"You're not coming down with something, are you?" Ranma asked suspiciously, reaching out to put his right hand against Nabiki's forehead.

"Honest money is what I'm coming down, and home, with." Nabiki replied. "It feels... Good."

"I'm happy for you, Nabs." Ranma said and stopped outside the door to his classroom.

"Thanks, Saotome. Well... Have a good day, I guess." she responded, before she nodded once then kept on walking, heading for the stairs.

"You too, Nabs." Ranma finished, before he entered his classroom.

* * *

"It's not too late to change your mind, Kasumi-chan." Ranma said as the two of them met in her room in the evening, after he'd finished school, spent three hours working at the parlour and done his homework. He took a sip from his cup of tea that she'd thoughtfully enough provided as he awaited her response.

"I don't give my word often, Ranma-kun. But once given, I don't break it any more easily then you do." Kasumi replied and took a sip from her own tea.

"But you're not happy!" Ranma protested.

"And you are?" she countered without missing a beat.

"If I only knew that you weren't sad, I would be. I'm not marrying a sex-changing freak, like you. I'm marrying one of the, if not the most, amazing woman it's ever been my privilege to meet." Ranma replied after a moment's consideration, then gasped as Kasumi leaned forward and poked his forehead, before she flicked his nose. That was more punishment then he'd ever seen her mete out before and it shocked him somewhat.

"I told you to stop being so hard on yourself, Ranma-kun." Kasumi gently chided him as she leaned back in her seat and took another sip from her tea. "But you're mistaken. I am happy." she said, then continued as she saw him about to debate her statement. "I'm not as happy as I could be, that much is true. But I don't think you really understand my situation. Let's see if I can't make clarify some things for you." she said and assumed a thoughtful expression. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about what you're about to hear." she finished before she leaned forward on the bed she was seated on, resting her elbows on her thighs and entwining her fingers around the cup she was holding.

"I haven't been happy, truly happy, in all the time that you've known me, Ranma-kun." she revealed with a faintly bitter sigh. "Growing up, I had dreams and aspirations, like every other girl my age. I wanted to do so many different things with my life. Florist, secretary, veterinarian, astronaut, pianist, doctor, pilot, nurse... I had lots of dreams and none of them included being a housewife. The closest I ever came to imagining myself in married life, was becoming a princess by marrying a prince." she admitted with a faint smile as she looked back on her life.

"All that changed when mother died." Kasumi said with a note of pain in her voice. "Father was, and still is, a wreck. He's a mere shadow of his former self, I don't recognize anything of the father I once knew in the man he is now. My mothers death completely devastated him and he has yet to recover from that. It's only since you and your father arrived that I've seen some faint hints of recovery in him, but he's still got a long way to go. None of us girls could depend on him for anything after mother died." she explained and wiped a few tears from the corner of her eyes.

"Akane was too young to really understand what had happened to mother, too innocent to understand a concept like death at that age." Kasumi continued and smiled sadly. "She was such a precious child, happy and innocent." she recalled before she shook her head. "Nabiki did sort of get it, even if she too was too young to fully understand it when mother died. But at least she realized that mother wasn't coming back, ever. I was all this family had at that point. Mothers insurance policy could have supported us for a couple of years, but father spent most of it drowning his sorrows and on a very extravagant funeral."

"When that money started running out after about a year, I began taking part-time jobs to keep us fed and clothed. It was... Hard. I had to keep up my grades in school, or they wouldn't let me work part-time. I had to work hard so that there would be food on the table. Then I had to tend to the house. For almost a year, I did that all alone, despite the toll it took on me." Kasumi revealed and Ranma felt his own eyes starting to moist up as Kasumi revealed the horrible facts of her childhood to him. She wiped away a few more tears and quenched a sob, which caused Ranma to abandon his seat on her chair to seat himself next to her, wrapping his right arm around her and hugging her close to him.

"Thanks, Ranma-kun..." Kasumi mumbled and took a deep breath, before she continued. "Nabiki who'd grown two years older and a lot more mature since mother died, saw what I was doing to myself and decided to ease my burden a bit by earning money on her own. She... She wasn't a good student back then and it got worse when she started working part-time, so the school put a stop to that. But she'd seen how much easier it became for me when I didn't have to work so much any longer, so she found another way to earn money." Kasumi explained and chuckled humourlessly.

"She wasn't very good at it, at first. After a particularly bad week, when one of her schemes had failed miserably and she had to dip into our meagre savings to cover for her loss, she swore that it'd never happen again. She understood that she needed to be smarter then those around her to succeed and she hit the books with a devotion bordering on fanatical. Half a year after that, she brought in so much money that I didn't need to work anymore." Kasumi revealed and then sighed again.

"Akane wanted to help out as well, but... She's a kind girl, really, but..." Kasumi sighed again and took another deep breath. "She couldn't help out around the house without causing a disaster and after Nabiki's failure to juggle schoolwork and part-time work, school wouldn't allow her to work either. Failing to be of any help to us changed her. A lot. She became frustrated and had nothing to take that frustration out on, so she turned to Martial Arts. She spent all her time training, improving on what father had taught us before mother died. She read the schools scrolls and tried her best to learn from them, constantly pleading with father to get him to train her, to no avail. That was the last straw for her, I think."

"That was when she started loosing her temper and started to loose respect for males. She loved, and still loves, father, the man she was most disappointed in. She couldn't turn her anger towards him as she both pitied and loved him at the same time, so she bottled up her resentment, not really letting it out until Kuno started pestering her and the 'hentai horde' began attacking her in the mornings." Kasumi revealed and turned pensive. "At first, I didn't do anything about it because it seemed as if she was finally starting to process her grief and anger. But when I finally discovered that it did her more harm then good, it was too late. She wouldn't listen to me when I suggested other ways to deal with her problems. I think this is what led to her main problem with you."

"The one she's really angry at, underneath it all, is probably father. She blames him for failing us all and for withdrawing when she needed him. But before you arrived, he was such a pitiful figure that she couldn't take it out on him. Then you arrived, one of the boys she'd grown to hate and engaged to marry her on top of it all, through fathers machinations. You were a link to father, without being father, whom she could take out her anger on." Kasumi explained and coughed. "It's not an excuse for how she treated you, of course. Her behaviour was completely unacceptable, though you weren't exactly blameless yourself."

"I know." Ranma agreed. Nabiki's tutoring had made him see a lot of things more clearly then ever before.

"Anyway, I've given up the dreams I had as a young girl. I'm a very different person now than I was then and my dreams have changed somewhat since then as well. I no longer dream of marrying a handsome prince, become an airline pilot or running my own flower shop. I would still like to become a nurse or a psychologist instead of a medical doctor, so that I can help father. But running the household, doesn't leave me with enough time to study for such a thing, so I had more or less resigned myself to run this household as a single housewife for the rest of my life. Or possibly wind up in a loveless arranged marriage, due to some foolish decision of fathers." Kasumi explained and then directed a warm smile at Ranma.

"And then, the engagement shifted to me." she announced and reached out to stroke the arm Ranma still had wrapped around her. "I was telling the truth yesterday, Ranma-kun. I like you, very much. I even love you in a way. It is not what I wanted to do with my life, but it's much better then what I've been expecting from my life lately. I get to marry a man I love, a marriage that also has the added benefit that it may shock father into some semblance of his older self again. I truly am happy, Ranma-kun. I'm just worried because you're not."

"Kasumi-chan..." Ranma mumbled and smiled sadly at her. "All right. If you can honestly tell me that this is what you want, I'll stop fretting about it."

"This..." Kasumi started, then leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on Ranma's cheek. "Is what I want." she announced. "I want us to try and make this work, Ranma-kun." she finished.

"Then that is what we're going to do." Ranma agreed and leaned over to kiss her cheek as well.

"You're not... Disappointed that you're marrying an old woman?" Kasumi inquired with a hint of worry in her voice.

"You're not old, Kasumi-chan! You're a young, beautiful girl and I'm privileged to be your fiancée." Ranma protested and desperately wracked his brain for the correct words. "I couldn't have done better for myself even if I searched all over the world for the perfect woman, because she's right here beside me."

"Thank you, Ranma-kun." Kasumi said with a breath-taking smile. "Thank you..." she said, then leaned over and when she kissed him this time, it wasn't on the cheek.

* * *

"Yen for your thoughts, Saotome." Nabiki said as she sat down next to Ranma as he meditated by the Koi pond.

"Kasumi is an amazing woman." Ranma announced after half a minute of silence.

"And you're only realizing this just now?" Nabiki asked with a faint hint of annoyment.

"No. But I'm constantly discovering new depths to just how amazing she really is." he responded. "I thought I knew, but... I... I'm envious of your family, Nabs. Kasumi has more love for her family in her pinkie finger then both my parents have in their entire hearts."

"Yeah... She's the only thing that kept this family together since mother died, y'know? Without her, all three of us would probably have wound up in foster homes and father in a mental institution." Nabiki replied. "Not that I don't occasionally wonder if that might not have been the best for father." she muttered under her breath, which Ranma just barely managed to pick up on.

The two of them sat together in a contemplative silence for a couple of minutes, before Nabiki spoke up again.

"You're really going to marry her?" she asked.

"Yes." Ranma replied without hesitation. At first, he'd been reluctant because he felt that Kasumi deserved better then him. Now, he was determined to do so in order to protect her from doing worse then him.

"Well, I guess congratulations on your upcoming nuptials are in order then, Saotome. I'm certain that Kasumi will make you very happy." she said with a friendly smile. "And you had BETTER make her happy too, or you'll never know what hit you. You'll be begging for the Nutcracker of Persuasion if you ever treat her wrong." Nabiki finished with a feral snarl.

"I love you too, Nabs." Ranma said with an amused smile as he reached out and put his left arm over her shoulders, not at all intimidated by her threat. But had she been able to see his face at that very moment, she would have been able to see in his eyes just how much that one statement had saddened and cost him to utter.

"Well, aren't we getting touchy-feely all of a sudden." Nabiki groused, but wasn't all that displeased with it at all, to tell the truth. She'd gotten used to having Ranma touching her during the month he'd been her slave and she'd gotten a few massages after that as well. Ranma too, had become a more physical person after all that, often reaching out to touch people. If she were to be complete honest with herself, she'd probably even admit to missing his touch after she'd been without it for a couple of hours.

Not only the marvellous massages he doled out, but something as simple as his arm over her shoulders as well.

"Ukyo and the Amazons have been remarkably quiet. I expected Shampoo and Ukyo both to show up at the parlour the moment school was out, to demand an explanation. After your little 'chat' with Kuno this morning, the rumour that you're engaged to Kasumi now was all over school. It must have reached both their ears by now." Nabiki mused.

"I talked with Ucchan at school and called Shampoo at lunch. I told them that I'd explain everything tomorrow evening so that I wouldn't have to deal with them right away." Ranma replied as he stared at the water, holding the woman he had grown to fall in love with over the last month while he contemplated the woman he was going to marry once school was out for summer.

The End! ( For now... )


	7. Seven

Nabiki - Master of Anything Goes R  
Niklas "Hawk" Jonsson

Summary: Ranma made another bet with Nabiki? Won't he ever learn? Well, at least this time it's a bet on an Anything Goes Martial Arts fight between Ranma and Nabiki. Surely our pig-tailed hero is capable of defeating Nabiki, 'aint he? Will this be the one time Ranma actually manages to one-up Nabiki?

Disclaimer: Ranma ½, the characters and whatnot are not mine, though I certainly wish they were! The story is mine though, all mine. This series deals with mature subject matters and violence. If this disturbs you, don't read. But if it does, then why the heck are you watching the show/reading the manga in the first place?

Feedback/Flames: Yes, please. Both of them are equally fun to read, although I must admit that I greatly prefer the first variety. :)  
I can be found on ICQ as 21771860 or through e-mail as iamhawk at yahoo dot com, more stories are available at my nifty lil' site at hawksgalaxy dot com or by clicking on my handle up above if you're reading this on fanfiction dot net.

"speech"  
emphasis/shouts/Kindred Domination/post-hypnotic triggers  
/thoughts/  
/telepathy/  
translation  
+soundeffect/radio/telephone conversation/TV+

Previously, on 'Nabiki - Master of Anything Goes'

"Well, I guess congratulations on your upcoming nuptials are in order then, Saotome. I'm certain that Kasumi will make you very happy." she said with a friendly smile. "And you had BETTER make her happy too, or you'll never know what hit you. You'll be begging for the Nutcracker of Persuasion if you ever treat her wrong." Nabiki finished with a feral snarl.

"I love you too, Nabs." Ranma said with an amused smile as he reached out and put his left arm over her shoulders, not at all intimidated by her threat. But had she been able to see his face at that very moment, she would have been able to see in his eyes just how much that one statement had saddened and cost him to utter.

"Well, aren't we getting touchy-feely all of a sudden." Nabiki groused, but wasn't all that displeased with it at all, to tell the truth. She'd gotten used to having Ranma touching her during the month he'd been her slave and she'd gotten a few massages after that as well. Ranma too, had become a more physical person after all that, often reaching out to touch people. If she were to be complete honest with herself, she'd probably even admit to missing his touch after she'd been without it for a couple of hours.

Not only the marvellous massages he doled out, but something as simple as his arm over her shoulders as well.

"Ukyo and the Amazons have been remarkably quiet. I expected Shampoo and Ukyo both to show up at the parlour the moment school was out, to demand an explanation. After your little 'chat' with Kuno this morning, the rumour that you're engaged to Kasumi now is all over school. It must have reached both their ears by now." Nabiki mused.

"I talked with Ucchan at school and called Shampoo at lunch. I told them that I'd explain everything tomorrow evening so that I wouldn't have to deal with them right away." Ranma replied as he stared at the water, holding the woman he had grown to fall in love with over the last month while he contemplated the woman he was going to marry once school was out for summer.

Roll credits

* * *

Chapter Seven:

"So, ungrateful son of mine. When's the wedding?" Genma asked as Ranma and Nabiki returned indoors about ten minutes later. Both of them having pondered things in a comfortable silence, neither of them having moved away from the other or Ranmas arm having been removed from around Nabiki's shoulder until both of them stood up to go inside.

"Whenever Kasumi-chan wants it." Ranma replied, much to the surprise of Genma, Soun and Akane. Nabiki was surprised as well, but didn't show any of it. Kasumi too was a bit surprised, but merely smiled happily in response.

"School is out over the summer. We could have the ceremony then, before Nabiki goes off to find an apartment for college." Kasumi quietly suggested, something the two of them had discussed before. "Would that be okay, Ranma-kun?" Kasumi asked, looking over at Ranma for approval.

"If that's what you want, then I'm all for it, Kasumi-chan." Ranma replied with a weak smile.

"No protests? No name-calling? No insults?" Genma gasped, his eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets. He turned to face Soun with an astonished expression on his face. "Tendo, old friend. Why didn't we think of shifting the engagement sooner? We could have had the families joined much earlier!"

"True, Saotome, my old friend." Soun agreed, but in a more muted manner then Ranma would have expected, considering how much the two old men had fought for a union in the past. Soun did smile and looked happy enough, but not to the extremes that Ranma had gotten used to whenever impending marriages between their two families was the topic of discussion.

"That should work out just fine." Nabiki announced, pulling out a notepad that she glanced at for a few moments, before she looked up again. "Yeah, that just might work. We should have got enough money stashed away by then for a decent ceremony."

"Can we perhaps hope for one not attended by any... Undesirables?" Kasumi asked with a raised eyebrow directed at the middle sister, who coughed and averted her eyes, with a hint of blush on her cheeks.

"Ah... Sure. I'll do my best." Nabiki replied.

"How nice of you, Nabiki-chan." Kasumi happily approved of her younger sisters statement.

"Ukyo and Shampoo will be over tomorrow evening." Ranma revealed. "I told them I'd explain everything to them then." he added as he saw how the fathers and Akane quite obviously had heard something other then what he'd actually said, or at least interpreted it incorrectly.

"Will they accept your explanation?" Kasumi asked with a faintly worried expression.

"Hardly." Ranma commented with a wry expression.

"Shampoo isn't really a problem. I've come up with several ways to get her out of your life since you first arrived here." Nabiki revealed and suddenly found herself facing a whole room filled with inquisitive expressions.

"I knew it!" Ranma muttered under his breath, his curious look blended with a furious one.

"Ukyo... Well... I have ideas, but I'm not sure how well, if at all, any of them will work." Nabiki continued and took a deep breath.

"Shampoo can be dealt with in a number of ways. One. You can put the marriage to her up as stakes in one of your fights. The Amazons would honour such an agreement and there have been several such instances before in their history, though it's usually the women putting up men as stakes in their fights. Challenge Mousse to a fight with Shampoo's hand in marriage on the line, then throw the fight and wham, Shampoo is out of your life."

"I. Do. Not. Lose." Ranma grunted out between gritted teeth.

"I sort of guessed you might have issues with that particular approach, yeah." Nabiki commented with a faint smile. "Two. Marry her, knock her up and send her back to China. Their ceremony won't be seen as legit in our judicial system, you don't have to go with her back to China and as long as she's married and gets a kid out of it, she can go back to her village with her honour restored. Then you can go ahead and marry Kasumi under Japanese law."

"No." Ranma replied, shaking his head. "I couldn't do that to Kasumi. Sleeping with another woman is completely out of the question."

"There are other ways to knock her up, y'know." Nabiki commented with a faint grin. "If you make it perfectly clear to Shampoo and Cologne that this is the only way they'll ever get some of what they want, Cologne will agree and then Shampoo will have no choice but to go along with it."

"I'm not sure how comfortable I would be marrying a married man, legal or illegal marriage." Kasumi commented with a faintly nauseated expression on her face.

"Shampoo can end the marriage whenever she wants to. Make a deal with her to end the marriage after she'd been confirmed pregnant." Nabiki suggested with a faint shrug. "Three. You can challenge Cologne to a bout of honour and win. If you do, she'll be required to grant you one favour. Ask for the arrangement with Shampoo to be annulled and she, as one of the Village Elders, will grant you just that."

"She's not an easy opponent." Ranma offered after a few moments, the closest he'd probably ever get to admit that he didn't actually think he could beat her in a fair fight.

"Nobody is unbeatable, Ranma. I thought you would have realized that by now." Nabiki chided him with a teasing grin.

"You cheated..." Ranma muttered.

"You can too. Anything Goes, remember?" Nabiki countered. "Or if you insist on fighting fair, ask Happosai and Tofu for pointers. They're bound to have some valuable insight into how you could fight her and win."

"But it's not a sure thing?" Ranma asked for clarification.

"There's an element of chance to this option, yeah." Nabiki agreed. "While the first two are both sure things, which is why I'd prefer that either one of those were used. If you go for the third, you can almost surely count on the fact that Cologne will insist on instant marriage ceremony if she wins."

"Marry her, Ranma." Kasumi interjected after nearly a full minute of contemplative silence.

"Gnck! What?!" Ranma spluttered.

"Kasumi!" Soun protested.

"I can't do that!" Ranma added.

"Damn straight! You're marrying Aka... Kasumi!" Genma agreed. "End of discussion!"

"Quiet, all." Kasumi requested in a calm but firm tone of voice. "Go for the second option, Ranma. Do the Amazon ceremony, get her pregnant and have her end the marriage."

"But... She'd give birth to my first-born." Ranma groused.

"Yes... I don't much like it either. But if you won't go for the first option and the third risks you winding up married without having some sort of hold over them that could end the marriage, what else do we have left?" Kasumi asked with a worried expression. "At least that would be a sure thing."

"What were those 'other ways' to get her pregnant, Nabiki?" Ranma asked after some deep contemplation.

"You two could go to a fertility clinic. They'll get a sperm sample from you, an egg from Shampoo, mix 'em together and stuff the egg back into Shampoo. Or you could simply make a 'donation' directly to Cologne. I know that she has other ways of doing the same thing, though then there might be a few Amazons other then Shampoo who'll be getting pregnant when they return, as you have quite a few traits the Amazon tribe are highly interested in." Nabiki replied. "Just make sure that you get in writing that the marriage will be ended and they'll go back to China afterwards, so there'll be no foul play."

"I'll have to think about this for a while. I'd better look up the old freak as well, see if he's willing to train me a bit. I'm not comfortable with the idea of becoming a father just yet to begin with and on top of that, becoming a father to a kid or kids I'll never get to see..." Ranma announced after a while. "What about Ukyo?"

"Well, the dowry problem isn't much of a problem. The cart had already been lost to the Gambling King at that point, so what might otherwise have been a huge issue isn't much of one. The problem is, Ukyo already knows about that and doesn't really care. What with her being a boy on the family registry, there might be somewhat of a problem getting married. So if we talk to her father about that, she could go back to being a girl. But that's not really an issue with her either." Nabiki explained and looked directly at Ranma. "The problem here, is that she really likes you. Truly and genuinely. I'm afraid that even if we somehow manage to get the engagement declared null and void, she'd still pursue you."

"She would." Kasumi agreed. "We've talked quite a few times since she first arrived and she's completely smitten with you, Ranma-kun." Kasumi added with a thoughtful expression. "When you found out that she was a girl and called her cute, she fell for you like a ton of bricks."

"She's quite reasonable, couldn't we simply talk to her?" Akane suggested, surprising everybody by actually offering up a constructive suggestion.

"Doesn't hurt to try. ... Well, not usually anyway. In Ranma's case however..." Nabiki commented with a faint grin. "Perhaps you'd better take that spatula away from her before talking to her."

"Right..." Ranma agreed with wry amusement.

"It's a shame that you're such a goody two-shoes or the problem could be solved as easily as that." Nabiki sighed and snapped her fingers to illustrate her point.

"How?" Genma quickly asked.

"By insinuating to Cologne or Shampoo that Ukyo is an obstacle that could benefit from a little careful application of their little shampooing amnesia trick. If she doesn't remember Ranma, well, problem solved." Nabiki replied.

"That's an excellent idea!" Genma approved.

"Pops! Shut your moronic trap! That is not an option." Ranma growled, a dark red battle aura slowly emerging into the visible spectrum even for lesser skilled martial artists like Kasumi and Nabiki. Soun, Akane and Genma had seen the aura appear the moment Nabiki mentioned amnesia. "I won't stand for anybody's mind being tampered with like that!"

"Figured as much, or I'd done it a long time ago." Nabiki sighed. "Well, you could try to offer Ukyo, or rather her father, a similar deal as the one with Shampoo. Perhaps he'll back off and allow Ukyo to become registered as a girl again if he gets a grandchild out of it. I don't know much about him, so I'm not at all sure of how he'll respond to such an offer though. I do know that Ukyo won't be all that pleased about it, however." she continued and shrugged helplessly. "Like I said, Ukyo is the real troublesome issue here."

"I'll talk with her." Kasumi suddenly declared, attracting the instant attention of everybody. "I have a few ideas... If that doesn't work out, we'll have to try something else." she quietly announced.

"Big sis... She is reasonable, but it is Ranma we're talking about here. She might..." Akane mildly protested. "You could get... Hurt."

"I don't believe so." Kasumi argued serenely.

"She is a Martial Artist, Kasumi-nee." Akane countered and Kasumi rolled her eyes, looking consideringly at Akane for a few moments, before she turned to Ranma and appeared to dismiss him as well. "Mr Saotome. Try to hit me with one of your panda signs." Kasumi requested and nodded at a few of the signs that were lying around after Genma's earlier pandafication.

"What?!" Soun exclaimed and turned a furious expression at Genma, the demon-face just barely being held back. "You'll do no such thing, Saotome!" he snarled.

"It's all right, father." Kasumi mildly commented and put her left hand on Soun's shoulder, which caused him to slump down and calm down. "Come on, Mr Saotome. Give me your best shot." Kasumi requested and after a moment of stunned silence, Genma merely shrugged and did as requested.

If the girl was as stupid as that, being whacked in the head with one of his signs surely couldn't make matters worse.

Soun, Ranma and Akane cried out in shocked protest as Genma leaned forward over the table and brought the sign down in a powerful sweeping arch, but didn't have time to react until it was too late.

"Whaaaa?!" Genma yelled as Kasumi deftly deflected the sign, twisted his wrist, pulled him back towards her and raised her free left hand to his stomach where she gave him a little extra push. Genma was pulled forward over the table, Kasumi shifted her left hand to his elbow and replaced her left hand with both her feet as she allowed herself to fall backwards to the ground and used her legs to push Genma back and up away from her. "AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaah!" Genma continued to squeal as he was launched out of the building and splashed down in the Koi pond, a very respectable amount of space away from where he'd first become airborne, which caused the remainder of the occupants to turn surprised expressions and widely opened eyes towards Kasumi, who deftly and graciously had spun around and seated herself again, calmly ordering her hair and arranging her clothes back into place.

"I can't possibly stand up to Ukyo in a real fight, but dealing with a rash act or two if she looses her temper during our discussion shouldn't be impossible." Kasumi commented with a faint smile as panda-san growf:ed his way back into the room, dripping water on the floor as he glared disapprovingly at Kasumi.

Nobody really had anything they could voice for several minutes after that shocking revelation, so other then a few angry growling sounds from Genma, Kasumi's decision to have a private conversation with Ukyo was left in unopposed silence.

"Nice, uh, throw, Kasumi." Ranma eventually managed to get out, which broke the temporary silent spell.

"I guess all that early morning Tai Chi and Akido you do have paid off, eh?" Nabiki inquired with a pleased grin.

"Well, that and I'm old enough to actually have received enough lessons from father that I can clearly recall them." Kasumi added with a faint hint of a blush on her cheeks at the unexpected praise. "Not that I'm too old, I hope?" she added with a faintly worried look directed at Ranma. It was clearly one thing that weighed heavily upon her mind, as he thought that this particular issue had already been dealt with.

"Of course not, Kasumi-chan." Ranma replied with a heart-stopping smile, which caused all three girls around the table to swallow nervously as they felt the effects of it. Even Nabiki and she had been the recipient of it plenty of times over the last month, as she had forced Ranma to practise it in order to perfect it, claiming it could be a devastatingly effective negotiation talent against women. But not even ample opportunities to inoculate herself against it had given her a fool-proof ability to ignore it. "You're plenty young for me." he continued and reached out to gently grasp one of her hands in both of his, proving that even a couple of weeks under Nabiki's tutelage wasn't enough to completely change him into a suave manipulator.

Though 'You are plenty young for me.' was no doubt heaps better then whatever he might have used before spending so much time around Nabiki...

But for Kasumi, it seemed to more then do the trick. While it may not have been the most eloquent compliment in the history of male-female relationships, she could feel that Ranma truly and honestly meant it, that it came straight from his heart.

And that was more worth to her then any amount of flowery speech or gushing praise could ever be.

Akane nearly leapt out of her seat as Ranma grasped Kasumi's hand, but managed to subdue her initial inclination to bash his head in for being a pervert long enough to calm herself down. She took a deep breath and forced her hands to unclench, then took another deep breath. This would quite obviously take some getting used to. She looked enviously over at how the two of them were still holding hands, fighting down several fierce stabs of jealousy, but eventually managing to regain control of herself.

/I will get over him!/ Akane swore silently inside the privacy of her own mind. /I don't care how long it takes or what I have to do, but I will get over him!/ she declared.

The openly displayed affection between the two was apparently reason enough for Soun and Genma to decide that another bout of celebration was in order, so the two of them moved off to share some sake over a game of Shogi.

"Let's leave the two of them alone." Nabiki suggested to Akane who nodded after a few moments of hesitation, when her old instincts telling her that Ranma would turn into a woman-defiling perverted freak if left alone with a girl, had flared up and nearly caused her to scream out a protest. But once those had been fought down, she silently nodded and after one final look back at the engaged couple in the doorway, followed Nabiki upstairs. "Kinda hard for you seeing them like that, is it?" Nabiki asked half-way up the stairs, sparing one of her very rare concerned expressions and a sympathetic glance for her younger sister.

"Yes." Akane managed to get out between gritted teeth.

"Well, you can always come to me and talk about it, if you want." Nabiki offered after a few moments. "I know that you'd usually go to Kasumi, but I guess that's out now, huh?" she continued and glanced over at Akane again, nearly flinching at the suspicious expression on her face. "No charge. I promise." she finished.

"Thanks, Nabiki. I'll think about it." Akane replied and looked curiously at Nabiki for a few moments, before she voiced what was on her mind. "And how are you holding up, Nabiki?"

"Me? What about me?" Nabiki asked with an utterly baffled expression on her face at the unexpected inquiry.

"I've been watching the two of you over this last month, Nabiki. Do you realize that you've spent more time around Ranma in the last month then you have spent with any man other then father over the course of your entire life? The only one that even comes close, is Kuno." Akane replied.

"So?" Nabiki inquired, still not quite getting it, even if she was starting to suspect where this was going.

"I... Uh... Accidentally... Overheard Ranma and Kasumi speaking in her room, well, mostly Kasumi. She was talking about us and our family and it got me thinking. ... She talked about how I somewhere deep inside of me hate father, but can't bring myself to truly hurt him because I love him at the same time. How I transferred that hate to boys in general instead of father in particular. ... The thing is... The thing is..." she hesitated, before she took a deep calming breath and pressed on. "The thing is, I don't think I'm the only one who does that. I think you do that too, older sister."

"Oh, really?" Nabiki asked with a raised eyebrow. "Let me ask you this. When was the last time you saw me punching a guy through a wall, hm?"

"Well, there was this once in kindergarten you were sent home, I believe. Wasn't a wall, I think you threw Kuno out of a window or something, right?" Akane asked.

"All right, my mistake. Since I reached the age of reason, can you recall me ever punching a guy?" Nabiki altered her question.

"No." Akane admitted. "But see, there's a lot of ways to hate someone. You may not go around punching people, at least not since father stopped training us. But you lash out in other ways, don't you? Think back, Nabiki. If you think about your 'business' and first how you acted with women, then think back upon you acted with men and tell me if you can see a difference between the two."

"So I was being a bit more lenient with girls, what does that prove?" Nabiki replied after a few moments to think back on past actions.

"For someone who's supposedly so into boys, can you name even one boy you've been seriously involved with or even had intentions of being seriously involved with them? I know you've been on plenty of dates, but can you name even one guy that you went out with because you honestly and truly liked him?" Akane asked as the two of them came to a stop outside Nabiki's room.

"No..." Nabiki whispered after nearly three minutes of complete silence.

"Is there anyone you would like to go out with, not to rip them off, but to just have a good time?" Akane asked while Nabiki was still distracted by her unexpected discovery.

"Ranm..." Nabiki started, but trailed off with a horrified expression. "Oh, god no! Not him!" she exclaimed.

"See? The first guy you've ever met that you actually want to hang out with, not because you can get money off him, but because you actually enjoy being with him." Akane declared and put her left hand on Nabiki's shoulder. "And now he's going to marry your older sister." she continued and took another deep breath. "That's why I asked how you were holding up." she finished.

"I was doing just fine until you brought this crap up." Nabiki muttered with a disgruntled expression. "Oh, Kami. Why him? Off all people, why would I enjoy being with him?" she asked herself and shook her head in dismay, before she gasped and looked over at Akane with a supremely horrified expression. "D-d-d-d-do you think I'm in... In... In..." she stuttered.

"In love with him?" Akane asked and got a mute forceful nod in response from Nabiki. "Dunno. I've got problems enough figuring out what I'm feeling myself. The fact that you do like him is pretty much obvious, at least. But if you merely like him as a friend or something deeper, is a question you'll have to find the answer to on your own, older sister. I can't much help you out there."

"Yeah..." Nabiki replied with a stunned expression. "Thanks... I think."

"No problem, 'Biki." Akane replied with a friendly smile.

"Ugh, not that old nickname again. Though I guess its better then your old drooled 'Nacchan's from when you were a baby." Nabiki commented with a mock shudder. "Remember what I said, if you want to talk..." she offered again.

"Likewise, older sister. If you need to talk, I'm here for you." Akane countered.

"I don't know if I dare to take you up on that. You've disturbed me more in the last five minutes then anyone else ever has. Good night, Akane." Nabiki said with a faint smile, as she opened her door and strolled into her room.

"Good night, older sister." Akane responded and looked at the door closing behind Nabiki, before she kept on walking to her own room, deep in thought.

The End! ( For now... )


End file.
